Almost Afraid to Hope or.... I Voted Today
I did vote today. i'm 31 years old, and today is the first time i've ever been able to vote for anyone in any office that i could actually personally identify with. It's the third time in my life that i have voted for a Good Candidate rather than the lesser of two evils (the only other times have been for a local District Attorney election). Today, i left the polls, and i very nearly cried.
As a Black woman, i felt connected. As a Democrat, i felt connected. As a Liberal, i felt connected. As that awkward Mixed kid sitting in the back, i, for the First time in life, look up and see someone who "looks" like me.
someone with a weird home life that you still claim and try to reconcile. someone who...well, i won't list Obama's biography here, but...but i believe in him AND his wife. i'm more hesitant about Biden, but hopeful. i know he's still a politician, and it's a dirty business, but maybe, just maybe, it doesn't have to be business as usual.
it's weird to me that voting could be the most hopeful thing that happened to me today...or this whole week.
Right now i feel like the world is a shitty place out to consume all the things that make me happy. i feel like a child throwing a temper tantrum, but with a really good reason for it.
But i remember standing on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama and looking down as it crossed the river and imagined what it might've been like to see what might've appeared like all the world arrayed against me daring me to believe in my own humanity. I remember standing in the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church trying to fathom losing a loved one to ignorant hate. I remember being called a "nigger" on the football field at my own high school graduation, and i'll remember being the first one in line to vote today, and, love me or hate me, no one stood in my way.
i do care who you vote for, but i care even more that you vote.
peace, love, and hope.
As a Black woman, i felt connected. As a Democrat, i felt connected. As a Liberal, i felt connected. As that awkward Mixed kid sitting in the back, i, for the First time in life, look up and see someone who "looks" like me.
someone with a weird home life that you still claim and try to reconcile. someone who...well, i won't list Obama's biography here, but...but i believe in him AND his wife. i'm more hesitant about Biden, but hopeful. i know he's still a politician, and it's a dirty business, but maybe, just maybe, it doesn't have to be business as usual.
it's weird to me that voting could be the most hopeful thing that happened to me today...or this whole week.
Right now i feel like the world is a shitty place out to consume all the things that make me happy. i feel like a child throwing a temper tantrum, but with a really good reason for it.
But i remember standing on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama and looking down as it crossed the river and imagined what it might've been like to see what might've appeared like all the world arrayed against me daring me to believe in my own humanity. I remember standing in the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church trying to fathom losing a loved one to ignorant hate. I remember being called a "nigger" on the football field at my own high school graduation, and i'll remember being the first one in line to vote today, and, love me or hate me, no one stood in my way.
i do care who you vote for, but i care even more that you vote.
peace, love, and hope.