When Obama completed the oath of office, Thirteen-year-old Rashad glanced at his mom and dad, seeing something he had never seen his father and mother do, wiping tears from their eyes. They both looked at each other, not saying a word. He heard his dad say, ‘I wish Mom, Dad, and my grandfather were here to see this,’ his mother just nodded as she wiped the tears from her eyes.
Rashad understood his parents’ reaction to Obama’s inauguration and his dad’s words about his great-grandfather and grandparents.
Seeing his parents’ reaction to the events on TV, Rashad made a decision he knew his dad wouldn’t be happy with but would understand as there was precedent in the family. His decision would require him to push himself and be a bit more serious about his school work, so he went to his room, pulled out his advanced calculus book, and started working on some of the problems.
When he finished studying, he came downstairs and asked to speak to his father in his office.
When Rashad’s dad returned to the living room and sat down on the couch next to his wife, she asked;
‘What was that all about?’ he replied,
‘Rashad made his decision.’
‘Oh, she replied. How do you feel about it?’
‘Not happy, but this is our son Rashad, and as you know, once he sets his mind to something, there is no moving him off it. I would love to have him working in the family business, but I understand why he wants to do it, and I can’t argue with his reasoning.
I’ve tried numerous to get him to consider other options, but it seems he is determined, and I can’t help but think seeing the country elected the first Black man to the highest office in the country was what sealed the deal for him.’
His wife took his hand into hers, gave him a gentle kiss on the cheek, and said,
‘You know who he takes after, don’t you with a smile?’
Her husband groaned
‘Yes, his uncle, my brother. It makes me proud that he wants to be like him. Brandon is a good man. He was smart as a whip, and when I think of it, he was maybe a year or two older than Rashad when he decided.
Dad was hoping he would take over the business, but Brandon told him I was better at it than he would ever be and that I would take it places he never could because his head was too much in the clouds.’
His wife looked at him, sensing something,
‘I’m getting a feeling something is wrong, is there?’ Sighing, he replied,
‘Things with the merger are moving faster than I thought, so we may have to move up our timetable for the move. We would have to pull Rashad out of school and settle him in a new school. I don’t want to do that.
It would be good if he could finish the year here, but I don’t know if that is possible.
We need to sell this place and find something in Virginia, and I would need you to do that. You have a keen eye and know how to deal with real estate people.’
His wife was about to respond when her husband Darth Vader’s theme started playing on her husband’s phone. She rolled her eyes, and he just smiled at her and said,
‘You know I’ve always loved Darth Vader.’ She went to the kitchen to get a cup of coffee.
Rashad’s friend Jimmy was also watching the inauguration of Obama up the street.
He was thinking to himself about something his mother said when Obama was running for President: that the country never elected a Black man. After watching him sworn in as the country’s forty-fourth President, he wondered what she would say now.
Jimmy couldn’t help but notice the look of displeasure on her face as Obama was taking the oath.
Jimmy’s mother finally broke the silence in the room;
‘Well, I suppose it had to happen sometime, but mark my words, he will get little done.
The country will go downhill, and it’s not time for his kind to run the country as big and complicated as ours. I don’t know what people were thinking; McCain was a far better candidate and should have won.”
Jimmy’s father was a man of few words, but when he did speak, it was always with reason and thought out, never in anger, but he responded to his mother’s comments in a way that was both an angry rebuke:
‘Mary, I don’t understand your issue. Bush was a disaster as President. Our boys are fighting two wars, including our two oldest, and we’re in a significant recession. And you’re blabbering about the Democrats are going to ruin everything.
What in God’s green earth is there left to destroy?
Luckily, we made our last mortgage payment two months ago, and we finally own this house free and clear.
Thousands are facing foreclosure after living in their homes for years. I just heard that Jack and Sandra Rand are about to lose the house they lived in for thirty years.
They took out a second for all those upgrades, and Jack got laid off and fell behind because of Republican mismanagement of everything.
So, if you don’t mind, I think it would be good of you to give the new guy a chance instead of going off on your rants about people like him don’t have the abilities; that’s damn nonsense, and you damn well know it.’
Jimmy was shocked to see his father respond that way to his mother. It set him back a bit, not knowing what the make of it all. But he wondered why his mother acted the way she did.
Her reaction to Obama winning the presidency was curiosity as he didn’t take his mother to be interested in politics.
As he pondered what had just happened, he started reflecting on things happening whenever Rashad came to help him with his math homework.
Rashad was very good at math and helped Jimmy a lot. He even showed him some good techniques to remember some of the formulas, and Jimmy surprised himself as he started to like math; Rashad showed him the symmetry of the equations. With his help, he improved his grades considerably.
As Jimmy reflected on Rashad’s help, he started thinking about his mother’s reaction to him being in the house.
He recalled that when his older and younger sisters were in the house, his mother would shoo them out of the room when Rashad was over or interrupt their conversations with him.
He recalled one day, Rashad asked Jimmy for a glass of water, and when Jimmy’s mother came into the kitchen and saw him drinking out of a glass, she was visibly upset.
Rashad was going to rinse out and place it in the sink, and she said she would do that, but she took the glass and dropped it. Rashad said he would help clean it up.
She told him she would take care of it and send them out of the kitchen, but Jimmy saw her deliberately dropping the glass. He was going to ask her about it but forgot.
As Jimmy thought about that incident, he was recalling others. There was one situation in particular that Jimmy pulled from his memory. It had to do with something he said about Rashad being excellent in math. His mother said people like him can’t handle higher-level math and scoffed at the idea Rashad was taking an advanced math class. He also remembered her saying that if Rashad took an advanced math class, he would be in the same class as his sister, but he wasn’t. That’s when Jimmy told his mother he wasn’t taking it at the high school but at the Junior college.
That is when she scolded him for lying to her and grounded him for the week for lying to her. So, when Rashad asked Jimmy to come over and play Warcraft, he told Rashad his mother grounded him for the weekend.
When Rashed asked what he did, Jimmy said I told her the truth about you taking advanced math classes at Junior college, but my mother didn’t believe me.
Jimmy recalled Rashad being upset. He said he would come over and vouch for him, but Jimmy told him not to because when she gets like that, she doesn’t listen because she’s already made up her mind.
As Jimmy thought about these incidents, he also reflected on what his father said today and what his mother said about Obama being the first Black President. He was slowly coming to a conclusion he didn’t like but wanted to make sure, so he devised a plan to test his theory.
He started drafting it, and when he finished, Jimmy thought, why would my Momma lie to me?
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