Local community leaders hopeful Obama will bring U.S. closer to equality

  In November, Americans elected the first black president, and that has some Yuma community leaders hopeful the change will bring America closer to equality.

  Gerry Giss, Yuma resident and third-generation member of the NAACP, said he's hopeful the election of Barack Obama will bring America closer to achieving the Founding Fathers' goal.

  "I hope it means that we are growing close to fulfilling the promise of true democracy," Giss said. "America keeps trying to live up to the promise of the Declaration of Independence and Constitution, but human history is slow and painful ..."

  Some of the 56 men who drafted the Declaration of Independence, including Thomas Jefferson, were slave owners. Giss said that it's symbolic because they still wrote that "all men are created equal."

  "There is a kind of magic in the symbolism of it and what it says about the power of language that's in the Declaration of Independence," Giss said. "It shows the power of great language and poetry in government."

  Fellow NAACP member Anne Harrison said it's also Obama's mix of different ethnicities that make him appealing and all-inclusive.

  But not everyone feels that way.

  Harrison said some people feel that a voter's skin color was a factor in the November election.

  "I have become very sensitive about people assuming that you think this way, or sound this way, look this way, vote this way - in other words, you're a formula," Harrison said.

  Giss said he also hopes that the world's view of America will be improved with the election of Obama. He said he hopes the world sees that Americans "take joy in the cultural variety in this nation."

  Father Javier Perez, of Immaculate Heart of Mary Church in Somerton, agreed. He said he hopes "it will be an opportunity for us to engage in the United Nations with more respectable relations with other nations."

  Perez said he also hopes that the administration will help bring immigration reform, end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and bring troops home. He's also hopeful that Obama's leadership will help the U.S. get out of its current economic crisis.

  Giss said that for him, Obama's election seems to have renewed hope for equality.

  "People need hope as much as they need bread and prayer, especially in this time in the world's history. Hope is a priceless commodity."

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Stephanie A. Wilken can be reached at swilken@yumasun.com or 539-6857.