Yo! Barack! That would be you, cuz gawd-only-knows what John McCain is, even if he did steal your rightful label from you.
My vote, it's not going to be for you, nor for me either. Who it will be for....
My Dad.
A skinny little white boy with sticking-out ears, growing up in abject poverty deep in the blackest heart of the Deep South. Ten or more people living in a shabby little two-room apartment at the height of the Depression, making ends meet with a mix of WPA jobs and the youngest and oldest members of the family getting up in the wee hours of the morning to make sandwiches to sell to passengers on the train.
One night, he and his brother snuck out and went to the Klan rally down at the schoolyard. A mob of people in full KKK dress, white robes, pointy hoods, and all. Burning crosses. An effigy hanging from a tree. At least, Dad's pretty sure it was just an effigy. I hope so.
Two very scared little boys ran back to the house, a house safe and warm and filled with the reassuring presence of family -- a family where the word nigger was thrown around openly and freely, and colored folks, though no longer actual slaves, were still regarded as probably only 3/5 human. That night they promised each other they'd never grow up to be like the rest of their family -- seeing some people as inferior just because of the color of their skin -- because it might mean you'd have to hang people and set things on fire if you became a grownup like that.
Dad grew up, went to college, got a good job, became a political and social activist, mostly about helping kids escape poverty. In this part of the country that would be little black kids.
My Mom.
Mom is from the Great White North. And not just because tons of snowflakes fall out of the sky every winter. We're talking 99% white people [like her and her family], 0.5% black people, and 0.5% other. Her fondest memory of the place is sitting in the car waiting for her parents to come out of the store, thinking If I ever get out of here, I'm never coming back.
Mom grew up in one of those truly patriarchal families, where the man of the house dictates every detail: what his wife will cook for each meal, what women's clubs she can or cannot join, what clothes the women and girls can wear [dowdy, skirts only, pants will get you sent straight to Hell when you die], what makeup they can wear [none] or perfume they can use [none], the few allowable hairstyles, and endless of do's and don'ts, mostly don'ts. No dancing, no drinking, no kissing boys, no ....
Mom was sent off to college [for her MRS degree] and promptly became a feminist, including putting her degree to work by getting a [gasp!] job. A real one that paid real money. Fortunately for us kids she also married Dad, but around all that, her social activism took on the problems of the most-discarded women in our society.
Victims of domestic violence. Homeless shelters for women and their children. A halfway house for women recovering from drug/alcohol addiction. Women in jail, mostly for prostitution and drug use [the johns all get a slap on the wrist, if that, and the small-time dealers are left free in hopes they'll lead police to the bigger fish, and the pimps don't come into the picture at all except to beat up the women for being dumb enough to get themselves thrown in jail].
Her vote of course, went unhesitatingly to Hillary in the primary, but all these problems disproportionately affect women of color here [probably everywhere] so she's happy with you too.
NB: Who should I vote for? would have been a no-brainer for me if you'd asked Hillary to be your VP.
It was inevitable that these two would team up about 10 years ago to help the women and children who are the victims beneficiaries of welfare "reform" which in this part of the country means most of them are the descendants of slaves. An ambitious undertaking, prompting them to recruit volunteers from a wide circle, and so they managed to lure me away from my polar bears and plovers and sea turtles and bats and butterflies and heritage trees to work with the kids on their reading and math. Which brings us to ...
My Kids.
No, they're not really mine, but gosh they're cute [third graders, they're my favorite], and what they need more than tutoring and vouchers and experimental schools is enough food to eat, clothes to wear, and homes where the windows aren't broken and the roof doesn't leak and the A/C works in summer, the heat works in winter, and the plumbing works year-round. And health care. Plus, it would help if we stopped throwing their parents in jail [and jailed the slumlords instead].
I'll be voting for all my kids who are positively starry-eyed that the next president is going to have hair like theirs. I'll be voting for my parents, who called me a few hours ago to tell me about the Obama Victory Party they'll be going to tonight [their first political victory party in like 30 years], and I could hear the starry eyes in their voices too.
Dude, you've got 100 days to become the man they all think you are.
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Thanks for that, nicely said
OK, I'm going to sleep now!
Is This Enough?
Is this enough for you, though?
This kind of symbolism isn't bad, but is this all that we get? I'll be honest, that simply isn't enough, for me. I need much more than big-themed symbolism when electing someone leader of the free world. In a less consequential office; in a more ceremonial one, I'd be more than happy for symbolism to be enough. But, we're talking about an office that absolutely demands a person proven to lead positively though actions. If symbolism were enough, if sitting pretty is all that the office demands, we'd install a Golden Calf in the Oval Office and call it a day.
I guess I'm saying that there is a much better and more appropriate and meaningful place to exorcize or national demons than the office of the presidency. And, to reiterate something that often makes people uncomfortable, if you're trying to make your vote a vote for the beginning of redemption for slavery, it's unfortunately misguided. Obama, by his ancestary, simply can not be the redeemer for that national sin; he has no authority over that history. He can't no matter how badly many want him to represent a chance at symbolic redemption of that ugly past stain. He can symbolically be many things, and he will be a historic first. He can be a strike at general racism, a strike against xenophobia, but what one can not project onto him is that he represents a chance at symbolic redemption of slavery's past.
I'd just like people to be real with themselves about what their chosen candidates can legitimately represent. We have to fool ourselves enough in politics (and, god knows that Obama's history is revised every other minute of the day to fit him into some other category), so it is best that we project as little as possible, but that when we do that it at least is accurate.
But, we've always been at war with Eastasia...
Simple answers to simple questions
Q. This kind of symbolism isn’t bad, but is this all that we get?
A. Probably.
Nice link on the 100 days
Now, we need to make a check list.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
I could have voted for symbolism alone
if it were not for the rampant counter-symbolism of misogyny this year. Or the cheating and voter fraud.
Symbolism can be incredibly important, even when, as Damon points out, Obama can't really redeem the counter history. But if it's important and moving in one place, then it's important and revolting in the other.
You can't vote for the symbolism of Obama's race without also voting for the symbolism of the denigration of women, the disenfranchisement based on savage misogyny, and the destruction of fundamental principles of fairness that underlie democracy.
In voting for your kids, will you also teach them that cheating and prejudice against one group is absolutely okay as long as you're lifting up another? Or will you particpate in the whitewashing lies that Lambert has been arguing against for months (probably years)?
The tragedy of this election is that divide and conquer, ever the weapon of Republicans and ever-reviled by so-called progressives, has been adopted wholeheartedly by the Democrats, and in doing so has linked a victory over racism with the destruction of women's equality. They didn't have to be linked, the benefit to one did not have to be welded to the cost of the other, but they were. And (to wildly change metaphors) it's not a bell that can be unrung.
If it were just that Obama is inexperienced, disingenuous (ok, a liar), incompetent, without accomplishment, and Republican-lite, I could probably still vote for him, based on the symbolism and hope that a D next to his name could inadvertently cause some support for some 'progressive' policy somewhere, somehow. As far as I can see, that is the only positive argument for Obama.
But the systemic disregard for Democratic principles have made it impossible to vote for him without also voting for the continued second-class status of women (and others, but I'm picking just one example here).
There is the intent in your vote, but there's also a result, regardless of intent. You can vote for the kids that look like Obama, but how do you justify voting against the half of the kids whose non-hair parts don't?
I still don't know who I will vote for, up until this morning voting McCain was always completely off the table for me. But maybe I'll vote against the people who made this election a zero-sum game for race and gender. That has always been the analytical framework of the people I consider my political and theoretical enemies, the Republican Party, but this year, for a very short moment in time, it's not. I'm sure it will be again, and I'm pretty sure this momentary respite in the unrelenting sexism of the Republican Party is almost completely fake. But the Democrats passed on the symbolism of electing a woman twice, once for top of the ticket and once for 2nd spot, refusing to share positive symbolism even when they knew it would all but guarantee them victory. That's might powerful symbolism, too -- but not the kind I want to lend any support to.
You don’t know me, son. So let me explain this to you once: If I ever kill you, you’ll be awake, you’ll be facing me, and you’ll be armed.
-Malcolm Reynolds, “Serenity”
Refusing to share symbolism
That's exactly right: this was all beyond excessive and by choice. Even when it was to their tremendous political benefit, their intolerance won out. That's stunning when you stop to think about it. They would have rather lost without her than win with her.
"They would have rather lost without her than win with her."
A Narrative-Meme so powerfully disseminated it saturated every public nook and cranny, so emotionally manipulative on so many levels it efficiently became internalized, producing mass hysteria.
This MUST be acknowledged, because it was undoubtably true that they would have rather lost without her than win with her. The only word for that is insanity. The only name for the directors of such madness are power-crazed misogynists.
Misogyny did trigger absolute insanity this election
Former friends of mine absolutely became unhinged when discussion turned to Hillary Clinton. They couldn't help themselves. I've honestly never seen anything like it before. Insane.
The worst part: selecting Biden, one who voted for AUMF and has a long history in Washington, made it too damn obvious that it was never about "judgment" or "change." It really only left her gender (especially since Obama's team looks like the sequel to the first Clinton administration).
This
is perfectly said.
I've voted for the Democrat in every presidential election except my first (I voted for John Anderson instead of either Carter or Reagan). I wasn't inspired by any of them, not even Gore, but I pulled the Dem lever because I thought the country would be better off with any of them over their Republican opponents, and my inspiration was beside the point. None of them were far enough left for me, all of them were mediocre on at least one issue I cared deeply about, but they were good enough and they got my votes.
But this time? No. I'm not voting for a Democrat who deliberately stirs up hatred against me. Not now. Not ever. I've found I have a line I won't cross just to pull the Dem lever, and Obama's on the other side. Voting for him would have meant condoning the hatred. Maybe someone else has that strong of a stomach. I don't.
Beautiful, Hipparchia
A perfect essay for today.
My father, as a child in Mississippi, was standing with his father in the doorway of the drugstore they owned as a pickup truck went by with a corpse bouncing in the back -- a lynched black man. They never forgot the shock, and passed that continued shock at the atrocities that never end to me.
And now, finally, an African-American president. It's long, long past time. I'm deeply proud of my country for finally growing up a little -- though not yet enough to respect a woman's candidacy.
May the next time be for the women.
My parents, when they were considering having children...
... lived in the tobacco-growing South in the mid-50s, and they loved the country and the place they lived (and they were newlyweds, and all). But they couldn't bear to bring up children in segregation -- and so they moved. Only one generation ago, too. And Amen on the next time. We've tried everything else, so why not try less testesterone?
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
Lovely post Hipparchia. I will be voting on resume.
Writing in Hillary. I feel kind of guilty that this may be a cop out but I'm doing it, all the same.
I love this job!
I love this job!
Hipparchia and BoGardiner
Thank you...just what I needed today. Your words powerfully articulate for me the reasons why I finally marked Obama's name on my absentee ballot late last night. I've been carrying it around with me for weeks. I now go to drop it off at my polling place without regret. I will also reference some of this when I tell my kids-- my bi-racial son and the 150 or so high school seniors in my charge when they ask me tomorrow how I voted. I will also tell them how grateful I am to Hillary and not hesitate to share the black spot in my heart that this campaign season has left.
I'm also off to do my damndest to make sure our wonderful proudly liberal 50-something woman mayor is re-elected. In so many ways, the race has been a sexist horror show...part of my frustration this year has been the insistence of so many to focus solely on the top (a place at this point nearly impervious to populist-fueled change)rather than choosing to fight the power closer to home, where just a few of us fire-upped types can indeed make a mark.
This is a profound remark
And I want to pull it out and emphasize it, because it's also something Badget said:
Say, I wonder why they want you to focus on the top?
We tend to think of things in horizontal layers: Village
, Federal, State, Local. But the local is so often where the sharp end of the vertical spear is....
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
My own kids, meta, memes, and symbolism.
In doing street-visibility campaign work for HRC this past Spring, my SO and I each had inadvertent encounters with large groups of primary-school girls. (4th-5th grade).
His encounter was with the monied and privileged students at Friends Select. Mine, with kids coming back from team practice at a public school field in Bridesburg. (They'd only seen the sights a girl can see from Bridesburg Heights.) But we had the same experience: the sound of these young female voices taking up a chant of "HILL-A-RY! HILL-A-RY! HILL-A-RY!" with no prompting except seeing our signage.
As late as this was (Primary day, April 22), I hadn't really seen the HRC campaign at that point as some kind of symbolic, inspirational thing "for the kids". But it was like a sucker punch to the gut, and I got all pherklempt.
Girls are kids, too, you know.
Right on, Davidson. I don't know what was worse
the anger at the mention of Hillary's name or the incredulous responses from Obama supporters to anyone who didn't support him.
I love this job!
I love this job!
Thanks, Hipparchia
Wonderful, well done.
Thanks Hipparchia
Very well spoken about the positive symbolism. It's sad that isn't the only symbolism implied, intended or exploited by his campaign, and although it didn't have to be that way, that is the way he chose it to be.
I'm not sure even yet if I will vote for him, but if I leave that spot blank or vote "Present", that will be the reason why.
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Around these parts we call cucumber slices circle bites
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I'm not such a bad guy once you get to know me.
How perfect
voting "present"
Heh.