What Does Having a Leader Who is Black Mean?

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With the celebrations going on today by people who just know that a President who is Black will do great things for other Black people reminds me of a man in one of the Army units I was in. When I first got to the unit they rotated the missions of the sections (between Aerial Delivery, Personnel Parachute Packing, Cargo Parachute Packing and Parachute Maintenance). The Aerial Delivery section had the most physically demanding job, longest hours and worst working conditions of any of the sections in our parachute rigger unit. The Aeriel Delivery section prepared vehicles and equipment to be dropped by parachute out of aircraft. After my section rotated from Cargo Parachute Pack to Aerial Delivery, the commander decided that it would be more efficient to make all the sections permanent. It made some sense, there was a bit of a learning curve after rotating that would be eliminated if we all just did the same job month after month. One of the riggers in another section worked for a few weeks to get transfered to the our section. His friends all thought he was crazy, wondering why he would volunteer to give up most his evenings and a lot of weekends by joining our section. When they asked him why he wanted the change, he just said that it looks a lot more interesting than packing parachutes 8 hours a day. Finally the day he had been looking forward to arrived. The change he had been hoping for finally happened. He was so excited when our 1st Sergeant called him out of formation and announced the change. His excitement was short-lived. In fact, he soon came to regret even thinking about pushing for the change. The Aerial Delivery section also had another distinction that most of us didn't give much thought... we had the only Section Sergeant who is Black. The rigger thought for sure that he would be given special treatment by the Section Sergeant and could not believe it when that sergeant didn't give a flying fig that the young rigger was also Black. Yes, it is a historic day, and Barack Obama will go down in history as the first US president who is Black. But if people are expecting special treatment just because the president "looks like them", they may be in for disappointment... in fact, if Obama is a great president, he has to disappoint them.