The first ever black President of the United States

At work yesterday afternoon I was writing the last story for one of my news feeds, about an online video series that has been spoofing the weekly developments in the US presidential race, when I had what can only be described as an epiphany.

It came as I wrote a short contextual paragraph at the end of the piece, something I had put into words seemingly countless times before, when I found myself stopping what I was doing to stare at what I had just written.

"On November 4th the United States will go to the polls in a historic election which could see the first ever black president of the United States."

Those last eight words really stopped me in my tracks.

I thought for a moment about what they meant. The simple, core statement of fact behind them I had written, said and heard in one form or another probably a thousand times ever since Barack Obama decided to stand for the Democratic nomination, not least since he defeated Hilary Clinton and was declared the chosen candidate.

But at about 2.55 on Friday afternoon was the perhaps first time I really had some sense of what they meant. I found myself struck by prospect of what they might mean for America and, as a Briton, for the entire world.

At the heart of it, I think, is that it will show how much America has grown. For all that might be said about a vote for Obama being as much a one for the man himself as it is a vote against eight years of what has become deeply unpopular, almost catastrophic Republican governance, Barack Obama becoming the first black president in American history would be something to be cherished.

If it happens (and I, like many others, hope and almost expect it to) then I shall be glad to be alive to see it. Just as I am thankful that I have never had to suffer the indignity of being considered by great swathes of people, certain laws and, at one time, a national government that I am an inferior being because of the colour of my skin.

I don't pretend to feel empathy with any victim of persecution as I have never been on the receiving end of such a thing, and having never been an American citizen I am not as aware as I might be of the scale of racism and prejudice that sears through American history from its beginnings as a independent nation to the present day.

In light of the obvious scale of sentiment against Barack Obama and black people in general alive and well in America, the fact the country may well be about to elect a black man to run it from the White House seems remarkable, brilliant and astonishing to me.

It would be easy to explain away this piece of history in the making. John McCain is not necessarily a strong enough challenger to the skilled, principled oration of Barack Obama. His choice of running mate was, to many people, a cheap trick which while pleasing a select few has seen many more alienated and further distanced from his message. The legacy of the outgoing president, one of the most unpopular in history, has seen to it than the Democrats were a virtual shoo-in for the Oval Office this November.

All of these things and more may well be true. But the fact remains that a country which once enshrined slavery of the black races in its very laws is on the verge of putting a 'person of colour' into the most powerful job in the world.

I think yesterday I gained a sense of just what that might mean.