Flashback to 2008. Barack Obama, a relatively unknown senator from Illinois, has just won the presidential election by a sweeping margin over Sen. John McCain (R) and female Gov. Sarah Palin (AK). Cheers from around the world are heard when the United States’ first black president was elected. 

We remember images of Jesse Jackson trying to hold back uncontrollable tears, citizens of Kenya dancing in the streets and President-elect Barack Obama standing up in front of American people and shouting “We rise and fall as one nation, as one people. Let’s resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness.”

BBC World News claims  America has recaptured the spirit of optimism and that an African American in the White House is “no longer a dream.” The news story said African Americans in federal power would be the new world as we know it. The United States and world were celebrating democracy, faith in government and freedom from racial oppression. And we all celebrated.

Fastforward to Nov. 5, 2014. Talk of midterm elections was relatively unheard of, aside from a few grumbles from Democratic associations and some excitement on Yik Yak, that the election [ads and harassment to vote on campus] are finally coming to an end.

Joni Ernst has just been elected as the first female senator from the state of Iowa. She serves in the Iowa National Guard as a combat veteran colonel. 

Tim Scott has just been elected as the first black senator from South Carolina since reconstruction after the Civil War. Mia Love is poised to become the first black congresswoman  from her respective state, in Utah  

Six years after this historic election, the president who was elected to unite all Americans is now facing a failed economic policy that continues to separate the “haves” from the “have-nots;” Marx’s version of a modern day proletariat and bourgeoisie, if you prefer. 

Despite relatively unheard of historic victories, here in Iowa, UNI recently hosted a rally in response to hate-speech among students.

We are experiencing racial, sexual, gender and socio-economic hatred at an all-time high. The income gap under democratic policies has hurt us as students entering the workforce. 

As students, we are faced with a decision of bad or worse when it comes to jobs after college. The future is bleak. Some of us are fighting to raise the minimum wage because we believe minimum wage with a college degree may be our reality after graduation. 

That’s IF we can get a full-time job with a company that can afford to provide health care. Add to that crippling student debt and we are seeing our American Dream being stripped away from us.  Needless to say, hope and change was an investment that didn’t pay off for our generation.  

It’s also disappointing to see that in President Obama’s six years as president, our society has become so divided that we can no longer celebrate a historic victory on the advancement of a race previously oppressed. 

Rather, we have strayed from the president’s dream of non-partisanship.  At UNI, we are taught to think critically — so postulate the gravity of this: the National Association for Advancement of Colored People refuses to accept these historic victories on the basis of their party affiliation. Choosing instead,  the very partisanship we once shed tears rallying against.  Regardless of my feelings for Obama I celebrated with the rest of the world in his accomplishment as the first African American president elected.

I don’t agree with Obama on much, but I hoped his “hope and change” rhetoric would unite us around being Americans, celebrating diversity and equality. 

On UNI’s campus, we saw many differing opinions in the elections prior to 2014.  There were not only negative ads buy also students harassing other students in classrooms and online about their opinions on the way our society is headed.  We should applaud the accomplishments of newly-elected diverse leadership with the same intensity we did in 2008, regardless of personal party affiliation.

Let’s see what the party of “old white men” can do with candidates who were elected, not for the color of their skin, but rather the content of their character.