The guys at the
golf range pass around emails or Internet pages that they’ve printed off. It’s
gotten worse than usual since the election is close. The owner handed the last
one to Ronald and asked him to read it. This one stated that both President
Obama and First Lady Michelle lost their law licenses under questionable
circumstances. It goes on to say that they were forced to “voluntarily retire”
their licenses, and that phrase supposedly indicates that there was some type
of unethical behavior on their part. It mentions that President Obama probably
gave up his license in 2008 “to escape charges that he ‘fibbed’ on his bar
application.”
“What do you
think?” Mr. White Golf Range Owner asked.
“I don’t believe
it,” Ronald responded. He told me about it when he got home, and I looked it up
on Snopes.com. It originally started circulating in 2010, and, of course, it is
false.
“Don’t they think
for a moment that if it were true, this story would have been all over the
news?” I asked him. I read the paper and watch the news every day.
Ronald printed off
the
Snopes page and brought it to the range the next day.
“You don’t expect
me to read this,” Mr. White Golf Range Owner said.
“It won’t take
long,” Ronald said.
A conservative
friend on Facebook responded to one of my comments on someone else’s page. The
other person had posted a
CNN.com post about a thirteen–year-old black boy who
was picked up by police because he fit the description of a burglary suspect.
The description was “black male wearing cargo shorts.” Read the post,
Helpless as my son, 13 was profiled, cuffed,
written by his mother.
Another Facebook
member wrote, “Give Obama 4 years & maybe he can help.”
I thought she was
naïve. Racism has just been more overt since President Obama took office. I
responded, “Four years won't make a difference. Don't get me wrong. We need
President Obama for four more years, but four years won't change this.”
My friend, and he
knows who he is if he reads this, posted, “we don't need Obama at all..... 4
more years will only do more damage.”
I was incensed.
How did he manage to turn this into a political argument when a mother was
hurting, her son was possibly traumatized, and this event plays itself out in
every town in America?
I didn’t respond to
my friend’s comment until the next morning. I needed to sleep on it. I posted,
“That was insensitive. I see you drank the ARMA juice already. Romney ought to
strap you to the roof of his car and take you home before you really get into
trouble.” (He was traveling to the annual conference of my professional
association ARMA)
My friend
responded, “it's politics... and I hold a much, much different point of view on
the current President and on who should be the President for the next four
years....”
Politics. They are
wearing me out, yet I am just as guilty. Here’s a sampling of some of my posts
on Facebook:
Some truths are meant to stay secret and
Mitt blabbed because he thought he was in a safe zone. He didn't even care that
there were wait staff circulating the room -- in his world, they don't count,
and he figured if one of them told what he'd heard, no one would believe him
anyway. But one of them had a smart phone, Mitt.
I'll never forget the moment when Senator
Obama shook my hand in Charlotte in 2008. 47 more days to re-elect President
Obama for 4 more years! High five!
Mitt needs a campaign reboot, like Herman
Munster needed to be hooked up to some lightening every once in a while. But
can you really bring the dead back to life? Let's hope not. Let's put this
campaign to rest and get on with the business of running this country by the
people, for the people, not by MItt just for 1% of the people. (With a link
to
The Daily Show)
Hatred stopped this man from accomplishing
all he set out to do. But we won't let that happen in the next four years. Our
votes will be our voices.
So even though my
friend angered me for trivializing and politicizing a situation that is
dangerous to young black men and Ronald is bombarded by printouts at the golf
range that he finds offensive, I realize politics are on everyone’s radar right
now. Emotions are running high.
I feel tired,
though. I’m queasy. Like I ate a bag of candy and I reached the stars on a sugar
high only to topple to a subterranean sugar low. I don’t want to look at
another piece of candy.
But things are
really going to heat up now. Forty-three days until the election and the
debates are just around the corner. I know I will be parked in front of the
television when they come on. I know I will watch the analysis afterwards. I’ll
read about them in the newspaper and on the Internet. I’ll search and search
and read some more, then make comments on Facebook and write about it in a blog
post, perhaps. I’ll just open another bag of candy and start eating them, one
by one or by the handful.
I know that campaign
fatigue is the last thing I need to feel right now. Too much is at stake. The
divisions between parties and people are too great, at least from my
perspective. It feels like the difference between everyone being a part of
America versus only the elite being a part of America while the rest of us, including the
47%, take on the burden of making the rich richer while having our civil rights
denied and legislated.
I’ve voted in
every presidential election since I was old enough to vote with the exception
of one.
My first
presidential election was 1976, and I voted for Jimmy Carter by absentee ballot.
The one I missed was due to happenstance.
I was out of town, in Rochester at an ARMA meeting (we’d gone as a group
on a chartered bus), on Election Day 1992. Bill Clinton was a dark horse, and I
didn’t think I liked him at first. I supported Jerry Brown in the Democratic
primary. But as the election drew near, I knew Bill Clinton was the right
choice.
The bus pulled back
into town around 5:30 PM, and my friend Dia met me to pick me up because Ronald
was working that evening. He had voted earlier in the day.
Dia had Cara and
Mackenzie with her, along with her two boys, because she had kept them after
school. She suggested we go eat dinner and then she would bring me to the poll
afterwards. She had already voted, too.
We ate, she drove
me to the poll, I stood in line, and when I got to the registration table, I
was told I was at the wrong poll. I had voted there many times before, but they
had changed the polling place a few times over the years. They directed me to
another one. I jumped back in the car and told Dia where to go. At the next
poll, they told me I was at the wrong place and gave me yet another location.
Usually I call the
League of Women Voters each Election Day to ensure I know the right polling
location on the rare chance that the postcard announcing my poll location had
somehow been lost in the mail, but I did not own a cell phone back then and
hadn’t thought to call in the days before the election. It was ten minutes till
9:00, and Dia drove over the speed limit, but the door of the poll was just
being locked as I reached for the handle.
After Dia dropped
us off at home, I sat in my rocking chair, the television on so I could track
the election results. I began to cry.
“I’ve never missed
an election,” I explained to Cara and Mackenzie. They were just six years old.
I talked to them about how women and blacks had to fight for the right to vote
and how some of them were hurt and even killed. I told them that if women and
blacks hadn’t believed so strongly in their right to vote and hadn’t given
their lives to the cause that Cara and Mackenzie wouldn’t have been able to
vote as biracial women. I told them it was very important to
exercise our right to vote. I said we should never give that right away through
apathy. They had come with me to vote in the past. They had stood in the booth as
I pulled the big lever across that closed the curtain and pushed down small
levers under names. I wanted them to feel comfortable voting when they came
of age.
Cara and Mackenzie
headed down the hall to get ready for bed. I sighed and tried to stop crying so
I could read them a bedtime story when they were done changing and brushing
their teeth. Cara came out a few minutes later and handed me a sheet of lined
paper.
“Here, Mom,” she
said. “Now you can vote.”
She had drawn a
ballot with boxes to check. I took the pencil from her and checked the box next
to Bill Clinton. Late that evening, after all polls had closed and reported
results, Bill Clinton was declared the winner. He garnered 43% of the popular
vote and 370 electoral votes. My vote didn’t contribute to the outcome, but I
was still upset that I missed casting it.
This election I am
worried that people will be turned away from the polls. I worry that the
shenanigans of the 2004 election will be repeated, only in more insidious ways.
That’s how strong I think the hatred is. That’s how strong I think the division
is.
One vote equals
one voice. Please pass the candy. I can’t afford to be tired. None of us can.
