Le New York Times publie aujourd'hui à la une un reportage sur la réaction des Noirs des États-Unis à la victoire historique de Barack Obama lors des caucus de l'Iowa, un État peuplé à 95% de Blancs. Pour plusieurs, il s'agit d'un point tournant dans les relations interraciales dans leur pays. Une réaction par d'autres :
"My goodness, has it ever happened before, a black man, in our life, in our country?" asked Edith Lambert, 60, a graduate student in theology who was having lunch at the Faneuil Hall Marketplace in Boston. "It makes me so proud that at a time when so many things are going wrong in the world that people can rise above past errors," added Ms. Lambert, who said she had not decided whom to vote for. "It shows that people aren't thinking small. They're thinking large, outside the box."
Bob Herbert, l'unique chroniqueur afro-américain du Times, signe pour sa part cet article sur ce qu'il appelle le «phénomène Obama». Je cite dans le texte ce passage clé :
Mr. Obama has shown, in one appearance after another, a capacity to make people feel good about their country again. His supporters want desperately to turn the page on the bitter politics and serial disasters of the past 20 years. That they have gravitated to a black candidate to carry out this task is - to use a term heard for the first time this week - momentous.
(Photo Reuters)