So it’s the day after the election, and there are so many things I am thinking about. I am so relieved that Obama won. I live with a friend and her eight-year old daughter. The day before the election, my friend said something about the polls opening at 7 am. Her daughter thought she said the pool opened at 7, and thought that was weird. I said the polls open at 7 on election day, and if McCain wins, the pool will open at 7 am the day after the election, and we can all go drown ourselves.
I want to believe everything Obama says about change, and how can I not be moved by Jesse Jackson in tears, or a story, that Sheri put on her blog about a 109-year-old woman in Texas, whose father was a slave, who was so thrilled to turn in her absentee ballot for Obama. Or a thousand other stories. Sheri’s racially mixed, basically low-income, and usually-having-little-street-life-neighborhood, erupting with joy and hugs and conversations between strangers last night. (I am not Sarah Palin and I know these last 2 are not full sentences 
)
But I also keep thinking about the article someone forwarded me from Counterpunch that said something to the effect of how can it be anti-racist to vote for a black man who supports the same old racist, imperialist policies. Or the Z Magazine interview with Rosa Clemente, who was the Green Party candidate for Vice President, and works with Critical Resistance, an amazing looking prison-abolition group. She talked about 3 out of 10 African American men in this country being in prison, on parole or on probation. And 1 in 8 Latino men are in the same situation. How prisoners, overwhelmingly black and urban, are counted in the census as living in the communities where they are imprisoned, overwhelmingly white and rural. This increases the rural communities’ populations and decreases the urban communities’ populations, and congressional districts are drawn accordingly. And so many related issues. Police brutality, the war on drugs as a war on the poor, prison labor, etc, etc. And where was this in Obama’s campaign?
And yet, and yet. I am so glad that Obama included a ‘planet in peril’ as one of the challenges his administration faces. We are having 3 in a row 70 degree days in Michigan, and all around town so many trees look sick, and I am scared. (Part of my freak-out is selfish. I like the coming of cold weather, and while not dependent on it like the polar bears, I feel all out of sorts when it’s this late and still warm. Out of sorts and wanting to run around like Chicken Little).
I also have the same icky sort of feeling about the electionthat I had in school when I didn’t study or didn’t study well for a test and then did pretty well. That something good happened, but as I didn’t earn it, I didn’t have the same right to celebrate as all the people who worked hard. So many people worked so hard for Obama and I did nothing and I’m so glad he won, but I know I didn’t do my part, except for voting. If I were working like a maniac at some other cause, I would feel better, because I know that no one can do everything, and I would be doing my part to make the world a better place. But right now I don’t think I’m doing that. I miss my days of being an activist, of being really involved in Amnesty International on campus, or with local groups working to close the School of the Americas or end sanctions on Iraq. But when I’m honest with myself, I don’t think I accomplished that much. I think I ran around like a maniac and gave this great impression of activity, but with relatively little result. And I was all frenetic, ungrounded and with too much ego invested in everything.
So I want to get back involved. And I’m not sure what/where. There are so many things that I’m interested in and think are so crucial: (while I’m sitting here stressing about what to do, the ice caps are melting and 2 million people are rotting in US prisons, etc,etc,) Criminal justice system reform, closing Guantanamo, closing the School of the Americas, getting all US troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan (and everywhere else, really) environmental justice, climate change, Palestine solidarity, labor solidarity, health care reform, something nice and simple like volunteering at the food co-op (but which one?? Ann Arbor or Ypsilanti) or the cat shelter. So with all these choices, I do nothing, and feel useless and overwhelmed, and collect bottles by the side of the road. (There are a lot of bottles). And there are vibes in some groups that I really don’t like. But I don’t want to use that as an excuse. I think I’m altogether too much like the Simon and Garfunkel song ‘Hazy Shade of Winter’: ’Time, time, time, see what’s become of me, while I looked around for my possibilities. I was so hard to please.’
I want to get involved in something that I can sink my teeth into and wrestle, like a terrier. Speaking of too much ego, this post was supposed to be about the election, and has ended up being all about me. Oh well.
