Democracy will triumph whenever people step forward

I am an African-American who has lived in Canada for more than 50 years. These past four years have been a real roller-coaster with Donald Trump in the White House. I'm glad it's over. It is so refreshing to wake up in the morning and not wonder if the world has come to an end due to some crazy act by the president of the United States.

The inauguration last week was the best I have seen in my lifetime. I thought Joe Biden's speech was great for the times, and my wife and I were just blown away by Amanda Gorman's poem.

Some of the words in her poem just stuck with me when she said, “We've seen forces that would shatter our nation rather than share it, would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy, and this effort very nearly succeeded, but while democracy can be periodically delayed, it can never be permanently defeated.”

For more than 200 years of the U.S. republic, the Africans who were kidnapped and enslaved had no rights under the world's greatest democracy. When they were given full rights, they were the ones who stepped up to the plate and helped save democracy by voting for Joe Biden in overwhelming numbers.

Some historians go as far as saying that no Democrat would have been elected to office if it were not for the overwhelming African-American vote.

People have asked what needs to be done in order to achieve racial equality. I often answer that it's easier than you might think. All you have to do is do what my wife's parents did to me: My wife is Irish and Scottish. Her parents simply treated me as if I was a member of the human race, and not a member of a subgroup with certain traits or habits that needed to be avoided. From that simple act of humanity we have had a wonderful marriage of 44 years and have achieved everything we wanted in our respective careers.

As Amanda Gorman said, “We can see the light if we have the courage, but we can also make the light if we have the courage.” In other words, we don't or shouldn't wait for others to do it, all we have to do is step up to the plate and do it ourselves.

Martin Luther King Jr. said it best: “When we treat people by the content of their character and not by the colour of their skin, then we are on the road to racial harmony.”

Malcom Motley, West Vancouver