Politics Will Break Your Heart
Jan. 6th, 2008 09:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rmPolitics will break your heart. If it doesn't, you're probably not doing it right. Either that, or you're damn lucky.
When I was seventeen, I went to North Carolina to campaign for Harvey Gantt against Jesse Helms. I was a freshman in college, had just joined the College Democrats and thought the free eight hour bus ride and miles of walking every day for a few days was a great way to combat the anti-gay insanity of Helms and also make a name for myself in the College Dems. You see, more than anything then, I wanted to one day be a delegate at the Democratic National Convention. Rising in power in a large CD org at a DC school would definitely be a step in the right direction.
I was paired up with a local, put on a fake accent, and went door to door for days. For me, who loathes talking to strangers, even when I'm an invited guest at a party, this was beyond intimidating. But I put on my fake southern accent, screwed up my courage, and somehow, somehow, managed it.
We had guns pointed at us twice. Once, by an old white woman with a shot gun who told us to get our "nigger-loving asses" off her property and once by a black teenager in the projects who saw us as interlopers of the stupidist kind. He may have been right.
There are many things about that trip I only remember faintly, like the motel we stayed in, and walking miles down the highway late one night looking for a gas station because I wanted a candy bar.
But there are other things I'll never forget, like a memorial service I saw there for a Confederate soldier whose remains had been found while digging up the foundation for a new building. Hundreds of men and women in civil-war era garb lined up for the procession in downtown Raleigh, and the men all hoisted period weapoins above their head in a very specific salute. We were in a bus then, going to have pulled pork for dinner at campaign headquarters, and I touched the dirty window and understood this meant something and even if I didn't like it, what it meant was important.
There was also a little boy, with a beautiful dog with a collar on a lead of mere twine. My canvassing partner asked the boy his dog's name.
"Harvey Gantt, sir," the boy said.
"Really?" we asked.
"Yes'm. My dog's Harvey Gantt."
"Well," my partner said, "could you bring this paper about Harvey Gantt to your momma?" my partner asked.
"Yes, sir!" the boy said and ran off.
My partner and I, oh I can't remember his name -- Elliot? Neal? something with e's and l's I remember the feel of it and his smile and perfect hair -- looked at each other wondering if this could possibly be happening.
Harvey Gantt didn't win. I found that out watching a projection TV at a party on campus that the College Democrats sponsored. As the returns came in he went from slightly behind to more and more behind, but as long as victory was numerically possible, we sat there and hoped. We sat there and prayed. And when it was finally over, we sat there and cried.
Politics should break your heart. And if it doesn't, you're not doing it right, and I don't care if that makes me naive.
My sophomore year of university, I got involved in the campus elections for student body president. The LGBT, which only added a Q a year or two later invited all the candidates to come to speak to us. There had been several bashings on campus and a lot of drama and we felt we had real issues that needed speaking to.
Of 11 candidates, only one came. He told us he was straight, and he told us it took courage to come talk to us because he knew it would hurt him with other constituencies on campus, but that he didn't care. This was about what was right, and if that was the message we could help him bring to the election, then we would all have done something that mattered.
And I did. I did. And I don't remember his name either, even as I slept outside one of the major academic buildings with posters, ready to grab prime space the moment we were allowed to put them up.
In the election he came in third. And then he came back to the LGBT and apologized. Not, as we had thought, for not winning. But for lying to us, because he was scared. You see, that boy whose name I don't remember? He was gay too.
Politics, if you're doing it right, will break your heart. And it will be glorious.
In my adult life, there have by and large been a derth of candidates I've been moved by as well as a derth of candidates I've overwhelmingly agreed with. But I have watched every single DNC and RNC, and I have trembled and sometimes cried at the nominating moments, even for candidates I have loathed or clunkers like Dukakis. Because as much as the political convention is an outmoded spectacle of party machinations the average person doesn't give a crap about -- it is also an exercise in audacity, in hope and in will. If it is also an exercise in ego and greed, and surely, it must always be, there is a part of me that has never learnt to care.
As I've gotten older, the thing I have come to understand more and more about our culture in this moment, in the moment of the last ten or twenty or maybe even more years, is that we are scared to be excited about things. It wouldn't be cool, or ironic. It is much better in most people's eyes, it seems, to shrug off a broken system, than to participate in it in memory of hope or in hope of gaining small purchase and change.
This enrages me. Our voter turnout numbers enrage me. But it's not just about politics I feel this way, it's about everything -- this being too cool to take unabashed pleasure in things, or unabashed hope. It makes me want to shout "shut up and dance!" Shut up and dance!
All of which brings us to why I give a shit about Barack Obama and why you should too. I want you to know right here and now this post is not about telling you to vote for him, but it is, in a way, about telling you to vote, for whomever you choose, because of him. Because he is unembarassed and unabashed. Because he has brought people into the political process that we have heard over and over again are the ones least likely to care. Because his supporters seem desperately willing to have their hearts broken and for that, I think they are fucking beautiful.
Because I was trained as a journalist and trained, I mean, in the truest pavlovian obedient sense of the word to aspire to press neutrality, I have never been registered with a political party. Yesterday, though, I sent in my voter registration form doing so, so I can finally vote in my first primary. It feels important. It feels hopeful. It feels glorious.
On the morning we found out John Kerry had lost the 2004 election, I sat on the subway staring at a woman across from me. She had been reading the New York Times, but had it crumpled in a hug to her chest now, the headline of defeat facing out in fanned wrinkles. And she had tears streaming down her cheeks. I promise you, no one had broken up with her that morning.
If you do one thing in 2008, be willing to have your heart broken. If you do two? Vote.
Politics, if you're doing it right, will break your heart. And if you understand that, you'll never give up on it until it's perfect, until you win, until hope is something far more than discarded, until you just shut up and dance.
When I was seventeen, I went to North Carolina to campaign for Harvey Gantt against Jesse Helms. I was a freshman in college, had just joined the College Democrats and thought the free eight hour bus ride and miles of walking every day for a few days was a great way to combat the anti-gay insanity of Helms and also make a name for myself in the College Dems. You see, more than anything then, I wanted to one day be a delegate at the Democratic National Convention. Rising in power in a large CD org at a DC school would definitely be a step in the right direction.
I was paired up with a local, put on a fake accent, and went door to door for days. For me, who loathes talking to strangers, even when I'm an invited guest at a party, this was beyond intimidating. But I put on my fake southern accent, screwed up my courage, and somehow, somehow, managed it.
We had guns pointed at us twice. Once, by an old white woman with a shot gun who told us to get our "nigger-loving asses" off her property and once by a black teenager in the projects who saw us as interlopers of the stupidist kind. He may have been right.
There are many things about that trip I only remember faintly, like the motel we stayed in, and walking miles down the highway late one night looking for a gas station because I wanted a candy bar.
But there are other things I'll never forget, like a memorial service I saw there for a Confederate soldier whose remains had been found while digging up the foundation for a new building. Hundreds of men and women in civil-war era garb lined up for the procession in downtown Raleigh, and the men all hoisted period weapoins above their head in a very specific salute. We were in a bus then, going to have pulled pork for dinner at campaign headquarters, and I touched the dirty window and understood this meant something and even if I didn't like it, what it meant was important.
There was also a little boy, with a beautiful dog with a collar on a lead of mere twine. My canvassing partner asked the boy his dog's name.
"Harvey Gantt, sir," the boy said.
"Really?" we asked.
"Yes'm. My dog's Harvey Gantt."
"Well," my partner said, "could you bring this paper about Harvey Gantt to your momma?" my partner asked.
"Yes, sir!" the boy said and ran off.
My partner and I, oh I can't remember his name -- Elliot? Neal? something with e's and l's I remember the feel of it and his smile and perfect hair -- looked at each other wondering if this could possibly be happening.
Harvey Gantt didn't win. I found that out watching a projection TV at a party on campus that the College Democrats sponsored. As the returns came in he went from slightly behind to more and more behind, but as long as victory was numerically possible, we sat there and hoped. We sat there and prayed. And when it was finally over, we sat there and cried.
Politics should break your heart. And if it doesn't, you're not doing it right, and I don't care if that makes me naive.
My sophomore year of university, I got involved in the campus elections for student body president. The LGBT, which only added a Q a year or two later invited all the candidates to come to speak to us. There had been several bashings on campus and a lot of drama and we felt we had real issues that needed speaking to.
Of 11 candidates, only one came. He told us he was straight, and he told us it took courage to come talk to us because he knew it would hurt him with other constituencies on campus, but that he didn't care. This was about what was right, and if that was the message we could help him bring to the election, then we would all have done something that mattered.
And I did. I did. And I don't remember his name either, even as I slept outside one of the major academic buildings with posters, ready to grab prime space the moment we were allowed to put them up.
In the election he came in third. And then he came back to the LGBT and apologized. Not, as we had thought, for not winning. But for lying to us, because he was scared. You see, that boy whose name I don't remember? He was gay too.
Politics, if you're doing it right, will break your heart. And it will be glorious.
In my adult life, there have by and large been a derth of candidates I've been moved by as well as a derth of candidates I've overwhelmingly agreed with. But I have watched every single DNC and RNC, and I have trembled and sometimes cried at the nominating moments, even for candidates I have loathed or clunkers like Dukakis. Because as much as the political convention is an outmoded spectacle of party machinations the average person doesn't give a crap about -- it is also an exercise in audacity, in hope and in will. If it is also an exercise in ego and greed, and surely, it must always be, there is a part of me that has never learnt to care.
As I've gotten older, the thing I have come to understand more and more about our culture in this moment, in the moment of the last ten or twenty or maybe even more years, is that we are scared to be excited about things. It wouldn't be cool, or ironic. It is much better in most people's eyes, it seems, to shrug off a broken system, than to participate in it in memory of hope or in hope of gaining small purchase and change.
This enrages me. Our voter turnout numbers enrage me. But it's not just about politics I feel this way, it's about everything -- this being too cool to take unabashed pleasure in things, or unabashed hope. It makes me want to shout "shut up and dance!" Shut up and dance!
All of which brings us to why I give a shit about Barack Obama and why you should too. I want you to know right here and now this post is not about telling you to vote for him, but it is, in a way, about telling you to vote, for whomever you choose, because of him. Because he is unembarassed and unabashed. Because he has brought people into the political process that we have heard over and over again are the ones least likely to care. Because his supporters seem desperately willing to have their hearts broken and for that, I think they are fucking beautiful.
Because I was trained as a journalist and trained, I mean, in the truest pavlovian obedient sense of the word to aspire to press neutrality, I have never been registered with a political party. Yesterday, though, I sent in my voter registration form doing so, so I can finally vote in my first primary. It feels important. It feels hopeful. It feels glorious.
On the morning we found out John Kerry had lost the 2004 election, I sat on the subway staring at a woman across from me. She had been reading the New York Times, but had it crumpled in a hug to her chest now, the headline of defeat facing out in fanned wrinkles. And she had tears streaming down her cheeks. I promise you, no one had broken up with her that morning.
If you do one thing in 2008, be willing to have your heart broken. If you do two? Vote.
Politics, if you're doing it right, will break your heart. And if you understand that, you'll never give up on it until it's perfect, until you win, until hope is something far more than discarded, until you just shut up and dance.
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no subject
Date: 2008-01-07 07:53 am (UTC)I watched that happen. Somewhere between 1974 and 1980, the US lost something - perhaps Watergate scared too many people, because they couldn't deal with the idea that sometimes our leaders were actually crooked, perhaps it was due to the rise and spread of Christian fundamentalist hypocrisy and related attitudes which spread far beyond the fundamentalists, perhaps it was simply that in some way I have never understood the 1960s and early 70s both frightened and exhausted people and they needed or wanted to stop caring about politics, the future, and make the world, or at least our nation a better place.
Regardless of the reason, that's exactly what a great many people did. Since that time, we've had grim irony and joking cynicism instead of honest hopes and dreams. Progress is somewhere between a dirty word and a joke, altruism is always suspect, and most people do their very best to look like they don't care (even if they secretly do) about anything beyond the immediate circle of their lives (or sometimes about anything at all). If there was one thing I could change in this nation, it would be to make most people care again. For too long, the only people who have cared have been the greedy (because greed has always remained acceptable) and the religious zealots, whose zealotry is not considered acceptable by most people, but who simply don't care.
no subject
Date: 2008-01-07 11:34 am (UTC)I wish I had been alive long enough to remember that. As it was, I was born in '86. I wish I had been born in the 40's or 50's instead. I would've gotten to see the sixties and seventies (and live with having horrible hair in the eighties).
As it was, I got stuck with the 90's and 00's. Not that the 90's don't hold their nostalgia for me in their own right, it's just that they don't seem as awesome as the 60's and 70's were.
Of course, I'm basing this on That 70's Show, the fashion from the 60's/70's (awesome!!!), and stories from my dad about how when he was a kid, everyone walked to school and parents weren't so worried that little Johnny would get abducted, or would have to do "unnecessary" physical labor. And how people used to laugh at the people who drove 3 blocks to the grocery store. I would've loved to go to/see Woodstock. LPs! I would've loved those :D (except for the fact that you can't easily play them on repeat, and I prefer to play my music on repeat; always have, even back with cassettes. I used to set the counter and then when the song was over, rewind back to zero. Killed a lot of batteries doing that).
Either that, or I would've loved to been involved in WW2. I definitely would've helped out any way that I could. I believe that dying for your country is a great honour, although these days, I wouldn't do so myself (simply because I don't believe in the cause of fighting in Iraq). If the right situation came up, though? I'd totally join up (and bitch and cry because I weigh 209lbs or so). I'm willing to fight. Maybe not ready yet, but I'm willing. If someone specific attacks our country, or is plotting world domination (Hitler), I'm totally there. Tell me where to sign, and I'll give away my rights.
Unfortunately, I don't know much about politics, these days. I figure everyone's a liar, and they're all going to fuck up the country, so why bother? That being said, from what I've heard about Obama, I am planning on voting for him. I believe in his postivism. I've always hated the campaign ads where all the candidates are all "Don't vote for the other guy, he's a scumbag." That's great and all, but tell me what you're going to do that's going to be better than the "scumbag." If I can't figure out from commercials what you're going to do for our country (and let's face it, the majority of candidates don't run commercials that way), I see no point in voting for you. And if all the candidates do that? I see no point in going to vote, period. Although, I did in '04. Voted for Kerry and cried because he didn't win.
no subject
Date: 2008-01-07 05:24 pm (UTC)I was born in '72, so while I have very little interest in 60s/7-s culture (I'm too austere for it and too into formality), I do remember when the world was more like this. My parents were uptight for the time, but I still had miles more freedom (and hard work to do) than kids today. We're making ourselves soft, confusing the difference between want and need and eliminating people's ability to understand that there are just causes worth fight for -- literally and metaphorically, personal and public.
no subject
Date: 2008-01-08 02:17 am (UTC)I totally agree with your sentiment, even if I'm not fully on board with Obama's political proposals (right now, I'm more for Edwards). However, there's no denying that Obama as a movement has a tremendous amount of force that is genuine and heartfelt, which frightens not only other political leaders (cf. Hillary Clinton), but most of the political/social scene in Washington (aka "The Village"), which has invested in cynical, ironic commentary for its own sake of power. Like many elements of the counter-culture, irony and detached cynicism has become co-opted and effectively de-fanged by its mainstreaming (cf. satire presented by The Onion or the Idiocracy movie becoming less funny and more depressingly prophetic). Actually giving a shit, and fighting back against what
no subject
Date: 2008-01-08 05:05 pm (UTC)But I feel that if you aren't willing to die for some cause, be it small or big, then you're aren't really living at all.
For example, I know that I am willing to die to save someone else's life, if such a situation as 9/11 happened again. Even if I hated the person and thought they were a useless, shallow waste of space, I'd be willing to die for them. I tend to have more honour when you get down to the harder times of life; people I wouldn't normally give the time of day to, I'd help them out if they were in a tough spot. I'm a bit naive that way (because I have this unrealistic belief that it will change their life; it probably won't), but that's who I am.
no subject
Date: 2008-01-08 05:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-08 05:11 pm (UTC)Ravenclaw
Gryfindor
Slytherin
Hufflepuff
I didn't understand why I had Slytherin before Hufflepuff, and was discussing it with my dad, and told him "I wouldn't want to be Hufflepuff. They never get anywhere in life, because they don't take any credit." Apparently, that was the reason I was Slytherin before I was Hufflepuff *g*
So, you could totally have honour *because* you're a Slytherin; you want credit for being all the awesome ;) Either that, or you have more Gryfindor in you than you think [[nods]]]
no subject
Date: 2008-01-08 05:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-08 05:44 pm (UTC)I guess she's not as pervy as the rest of us (either that, or she just isn't a pedophile, by LJ's terms).
Dude, that would make an awesome icon "JKR: Shunned from the fandom community. Reason: Not enough inner pedo"
no subject
Date: 2008-01-08 05:48 pm (UTC)