Health Care.

You can sum up my disappointment with the Obama Administration in two words. Health. Care.

I was a Hillary supporter early on, but like many African-Americans, I was absolutely energized after Obama won the New Hampshire primary. I read every piece of literature that I could find, immersed myself in pages and pages of web articles, blog posts and Obama campaign documents. Here was a candidate who would finally change the status quo, I thought. I was proud to lend him whatever small amount of support that I could.

It was clear to me then that he was a candidate that I could get behind, not because of his race, but because he could win. I threw myself into the campaign: knocking on doors, making phone calls–even convincing my long-time Clinton-loving parents to learn more about him and to finally vote for him.

On election night, sitting in a living room with my friend’s aging parents who had immigrated to the United States from Jamaica, I cried. Together, we danced. We screamed. We thanked God for the victory.

It’s hard to believe that was just a year ago.

Today, I feel deflated and disillusioned, and I am wondering if I all that talk of hope and change was a sham. Civility in Washington? Nope. Accountability? Nope. Transparency? Fuggedaboudit. I waited for President Obama to drop the hammer on Republicans, to roll up his sleeves, and dig into the health care debates. This might be the only chance in my lifetime to set the groundwork for a “more perfect union,” I thought. What I saw instead was bailed-out Wall Street banks and an inept, fat-cat, Wall Street-connected treasury secretary making a mockery of the his campaign philosophy. What the eff had happened? Where was the public option? Where was the hope? Where the hell was the change?

I don’t regret voting for President Obama. Regret is a useless emotion. Like all decisions that I later have to re-evaluate, I understand that I made the very best decision that I could at the time with the information that I had. But what President Obama must realize is that the American people–in large part because of him–are more educated and more interested in their government. Unfortunately, we don’t much like what we see.

I know what you’re thinking – this has nothing to do with helping yourself meet your goals to become a better “you.”

But it does. Like never before, we must remember that change – true change – is up to us. We can and MUST change the world, with or without President Obama’s help, with our own two hands.