Read White And ...
I have needed some time to cool. After reading clarkelane ‘s entry about his determinations, directions, in reaction to this past election, I am determined to make my own resolutions. Before I get there, though, I have to nail down where things are, for me:
A lot of people have been writing about “getting over it” and “staying to fight,” and I understand and admire that viewpoint. People’s reactions to the election vary, though, dependent on how the current administration currently works for them. Fighting surely seems like a sunnier prospect for someone whose health, safety, finances, and mobility aren’t tangibly and immediately threatened than it does, say, for an Arabic person, who might be “disappeared” under the banner of Homeland Security at any second. (Many people might undergo this; it’s just that I know of a hand-full of Arabic people this actually happened to in the Memphis area.)
Your reaction to this election may range from bemusement to determination to irony to desperation to violence. While some of these reactions may be mis-guided, I think that most are fairly directly rooted in how you’ve experienced the ills of the first of two Bush presidencies.
I am lucky. I have lived relatively unscathed - even as a queer, even as a socialist- as a white male citizen with a professional-seeming job. Given that, I still believe that “fighting” is deeply compromised because citizenship has been fairly thoroughly and systematically undermined.
How will we fight?
Voting? There is the electoral college. There is the manipulation of voting process. There are purposely misleading campaigns that work to create ignorance. (A 40-year-old white Catholic stock boy at a local grocery store said that he couldn’t bring himself to vote for Kerry because Kerry did not believe in God and encouraged pregnant women to have abortions.) There is the ridiculously fake distinction between two parties that are both run by indistinguishabe monied interests. There are consciously (in my opinion) lowered literacy and critical thinking skills. (Think Reagan’s push on math and science to the diminshment of history, arts, and language was a happenstance?) There is the huge, unmanageable bureaucracy that is this country.
Should we speak through our congressfolks? Just an anecdote: I wrote to my Congressman (Bill Frist) about some same-sex-issues-related bill. He responded that he appreciated my concern and that he would keep it in mind if he were called upon to speak or vote on the matter but that, for the time being, the matter had gone to a certain sub-committee for review. He named the sub-committee. On his very own letterhead, it clearly stated that he himself belonged to said sub-committee.
What about protest? Well, protests are legislated to happen in designated places at designated times. They are organized as a cute part of our bureaucracy. Even art and personal expression are easily co-opted or ignored. Not to mention that the simple numbers necessary for an effective protest are hard to come by. Strangely enough, when I was part of a fairly large war protest here, the local news largely ignored it. People were surprised to find it had happened at all. And are we really willing to risk getting arrested for these principles? Really?
These are the reasons I feel a little deflated about rallies to fight. I get excited when I read Pete’s post about what he plans to concretely do because it gives me ideas. Because I just can’t wait - as a part of my personal political action - to express myself in the next Presidential election.
But since I can’t afford to leave the country (something I think is a completely valid choice, if feasible), I need to come to grasp what it is I will do. (Another entry …)