I had been thinking about voting for Barack Obama but when election day arrived, I chose not to. I found it difficult to believe he could win a primary, especially in my state. More importantly, I feared he would never survive the presidency, if elected to the White House. After all, he is a Black man trying to enter a "white" house. Maybe, they should've considered changing the paint job on the structure a long time ago. Wow! The connotations and symbolism behind just the color of the house. Now, back to what stirred me about the primary and Barack's participation. I remembered the untimely death of many African American martyrs:Emmett Till, Malcolm X, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the thousands killed in slavery. As light - skinned as Obama appeared to me, at first, he was a black man. (As delusional as we may want to be concerning racial harmony in America, I still recant the visions of Black men being the first falsely arrested and imprisoned.) Ironically, voters across the land, screamed, "He's not exactly black; he part white." Aren't all black people part white? Although Barack has lived a diverse and interesting life, he has still chosen to emphasize his blackness by marrying "black" to procreate blackness, owns property in Hyde Park, and belonged to a black ministry, which he publicly defended. "But what was my worst fear?" I asked. I concluded: I feared his untimely death. Would his bravery and stands for "change" cause him his very life like it had done John Kennedy, Malcolm, Martin and finally Robert Kennedy? Has White America really changed? Are they really willing to embrace their black brother both publicly and privately? Will the inevitable occur in our lifetime? I believe it will but I pray Obama and the rest of us will live to see the change he so eloquently speaks of. He has already made history, but will he be allowed to implement the dreams so long dreamed by black people in America?