President Barack Obama Inspires America

I am one of the luckiest people alive to have benefited from personal achievements over seven decades. In 1971, I stood on the rooftop of Tower One along with my assistant a few days before it was completed. I was accompanied by two engineers from the World Trade Center operations in order to take the first photographs of Manhattan from the city’s greatest vantage point.

The event I just described took place about a year after an associate and I started our own company on West 45th Street. In those days, I competed against the best photographers for assignments from the largest ad agencies and corporations in the world.

More than 38 years later I sit at my desk completely awe struck by the accomplishment of our new President, Barack Obama. While I can relate to his tenacity and confidence, there is no way that I can imagine how this new status in an American culture must feel to him.

In my view, Obama’s strongest asset is his poise, which emanates from a combination of sub-attributes. President Obama has more universality than most public figures ever acquire; and his vision of the future for this country is both admirable and phenomenal.

While listening to his inaugural speech today, I never questioned his audacity and confidence. I was rapt with the quiet self-assertion he exuded when he made key references to the fallacies of greed and short sightedness in our society. I took aim at those kinds of malignancies in my recently published novel, "Stock Power". There is no doubt in my mind that President Obama has the ability to lead. I simply hope he maintains his balance as he adjusts to his new mantle of power.

America has an obligation, in the meantime. The citizens of this great nation must realize how important it is to rally behind our new leadership. We cannot afford to sit back and wait for change to jump off our TV screens and wave its magic wand. My personal commitment is to editorialize on my ambitions for my community. For example, I plan to engage young people in the town where I live with the aid of my journalistic skills. I believe the cost of education can be reduced when we contribute our time and talents to the next generation.

Am I inspired? You had better believe I am! However, inspiration, alone, has a short shelf-life. Thanks to the media, we will be reminded of the stirring inaugural event that took place today. During the coming weeks, American citizens should find their respective work gloves and put them on.

There is enough construction work to go around. The moment of opportunity has come for all of us to help make it happen.

Hudster

Racism: Deprivation vs. Myopia

It's about time I jumped into the fray on ethnic moires in the presidential race. A lot of figures of speech used to degrade a person because of his or her skin color can be charged off as evidence, among blacks and whites, of a narrow experience in life. I'm an expert on the subject, and I know what I am talking about.

Both of my parents are of African descent. Yet, they instilled in me an attitude that transcended the bias that prevailed when I was a kid in the fifties on the Westside of Chicago. It was because of their encouragement and their unending efforts to take me around to most of the states in this country that I was able to excell in the "white man's world".

This simply means I know, first hand, what it is like to have a business appointment cancelled by an executive at the last minute when he or she discovered I was black. On occasion, my business partner and I had to agree that he should represent our company to new customers. As time passed, I achieved unparalleled advancements in business because I proved my worth to management at Fortune 500 companies. The list of corporations is stellar.

In my view, one has to be very ignorant of the real social progress in the United States, considering the influx of immigrants from hundreds of foreign countries. I think a lot of people would be amazed at the number of chief executives in the United States that are of the African-American heritage and foreign extracts.

Read my book, "Stock Power", to get a fact-based example of how racial bias in America can be, and should be, rejected as the basic reason to deny a qualified individual his or her right to a critical position in business or politics.

I am Equityhawk, and I approve of this message.