I am at a loss for words. I know, I know, it doesn't happen often, and so you, fillers of time, should be happy about that. I caution those of you who read this: Today I am a frustrated American, a disillusioned voter and without a doubt a minority (in so many more ways than I'd ever before realized).
That being said, this isn't going to be a whining rant, or a Bush-bashing anthem or a feeble plea to those whose ears have already turned. No, this is just Danita trying to talk some things out. Pardon the inherent contradictions that will surely follow, but everyday it seems to be getting harder for me to make sense of anything and today it's as tough as it's ever been...
Who are we? As a people? You cannot allow yourself to be pacified by a shrug that says, "We just agree to disagree..." "Life goes on..." There is no consolation in that! I can see clearly that life goes on, but apathy, whether smitely smeared or hopelessly harbored, is not the answer.
Today, as a people, we are divided. How do you feel living in a country that so blatantly proclaims its vehement division? I do not feel comfortable. Some of you may feel safe and normal; I feel cheated. I just told someone that you could plant dis- in front of nearly every word there is and today I would be feeling it. I am dis-heartened, dis-illusioned, dis-traught, dis-appointed, dis-gusted.
Can anyone help me? I mean, is there something anyone can say to help me try to deal with the FACT that my vote didn't go anywhere? I even labored about the ordeal yesterday before I stood in line for an hour. I thought cynically to myself, "You know this is a waste of time. You're in South Carolina you know. Why even bother?" I stood there and listened to people talk about choosing the lesser of the two evils, and I was disgusted.
Sure, people ride around with South Carolina is Bush Country bumper stickers, W04 stickers, etc., but to hear these people (who claim to be a part of that very group) say what they were saying is dis-heartening. One man even said to me, "You know, I don't want you to take this the wrong way, but I think I know who you're going to vote for and it's just a plain shame that it isn't going to get you a thing you probably need..."
Ain't that the truth?! We, and the eavesdropping/feeling-free-to-commentate others, went on to discuss this back and forth. I said I felt I had to come for many reasons, and though in the back of my mind I knew that it wouldn't count, I feel like the following:
- As a black woman, not voting would mean to me that virtually no other victory or success in my life would come with the full acknowledgment and appreciation of the people who have come before me. How could I stand on the shoulders and backs of those who laid down before me, knowing that I (even with my one-measly-vote-self) had compromised everything for which they so doggedly fought? I could find no way to justify that guilt and remorse when I asked myself yesterday, why vote? People died just so I could stand in that line with my fellow country people. It felt like I would be turning my back on Martin Luther King Jr., Malcom X, Fannie Lou Hamer, Thurgood Marshall, Medgar Evers and the countless others who dreamed great dreams that I now have the right to fulfill. I could not let myself down in that way. To let them down means I would just be one crab in a barrel too full.
- Call me an idealist, naive or a glutton for punishment, but I had to memorize and recite the Preamble and read and study the Declaration of Independence (and all the others too numerous and jumbled to correctly recall) just like the rest of you, and doggone it - I believed it (crap that it appears to be at this moment)! For many years I sat in classes and was told that those Founding Fathers were my Founding Fathers, and that everything they wished for themselves had been passed on to me. People, black and white, died so it could be true. Even when I asked my elders, black and white, if that meant little ol' me, too, I believed that the American Dream included me. I'm an American, too.
- I'm sick of people trying to tell me in what ways my beliefs and actions dictate how un-American I am. I figured that probably the ONE thing that is American is voting and so I cast my lot... The founding principles of this country, the American Dreams and fights for freedom and independence, are living, breathing entities just like the rest of us; I accepted the charge of keeping hope alive.
There is a deceiving and sickening glibness (a smog if you will) permeating the chasm that looms between our polarized nation. It seems that no one can cut through it, but we all see it clearly and choke from its pollution. Today winners bask, losers are losers and there is much bantering being lobbed back and forth between the two about winning and losing. Why is that? (Concessions lead to recessions....) I think it's obvious that I'm not the only one who increasingly finds our bi-partisan system to be shamefully mis-representative. And instead of truly working together to find solutions, to even discuss solutions, everyone scurries to laud and defend their own interests. We have to get serious about working and finding a way to re-define ourselves as a people. The whole world knows we are at odds with ourselves, and though our military remains the mightiest, we are not without weaknesses.
But I am losing myself, because I am too dumbfounded and genuinely hurt to offer solutions. (I know that seems convenient given my rather lengthy call to arms, but spare your condescensions for the cable TV polls.) Just because I don't have answers today, though, doesn't mean I will stand idly by and be a part of the masses that threaten to step over me...
- Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height, Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray. Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light. _Dylan Thomas
Lastly, in the words of my favorite Founding Father, Thomas Jefferson, whose intentions were good, I say:
Dissent is the highest form of patriotism.
