Witness to History

Cynthia — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 11:31:28 EST

Two days after those historic words, "Barack Obama has been elected the 44th President of the United States," I am still floating in a haze of euphoria. Today I've been catching up on reading the post-election accounts, and every so often, the tears of Election Night well up again, and I sob with joy.

Friends, I grew up when there were still signs on the water fountains that said "White" and "Colored." I was torn up when Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy were assassinated. As a journalist, I've spent the past 35 years documenting America's injustices, and those harsh truths had soured my spirit and frozen my heart. The America that my parents loved, that they taught me to love, those ideals of freedom and justice and equality that my father had fought for in World War II, seemed a distant memory.

Then I was moved this past summer to volunteer for the Obama Dallas organization. Like so many of us, I gave as much time as I could, even though I knew it unlikely that Texas would give its 27 electoral votes to Obama. But I did what I could. I made the phone calls and sent emails, sold T-shirts and buttons and yard signs and when early voting came, worked as a poll greeter. And I witnessed something truly amazing: People of all colors and ethnic heritages were working together in common cause. They were energized, united, friendly, HOPEFUL.

One of my church friends says she saw me on local TV screaming my head off when the Obama Dallas watch party got the news that Barack was elected. We were all screaming and yelling and hugging and kissing and high-five-ing and fist-bumping and jumping and any other expression of joy you can imagine. But my friend Julie and I, and many others, were also weeping, stunned and grateful that we had lived long enough to see this particular piece of history being made, and to know that we helped to make it happen.

Yes, we did. Now the hard work of building a new America for the 21st Century stretches before us. We are no longer the prisoners of fear, because this we know: Yes, We Can!

God bless us all, all around the world, no exceptions!

Cynthia Astle

A Woman's Worth

Angelina from Greensboro, NC — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 15:52:59 EDT

A Woman's Worth

We've come a long way baby
Tuesday, September 09, 2008
By Goldie Taylor

I have been a mother all of my adult life. A single working mother. I put off dating, took menial jobs far beneath my qualifications and baked my share of ginger bread cookies for PTA Night, all so that three incredible children could have a better life. I chose their lives over mine. I don't have to tell you that it wasn't easy. Unfortunately, my story, our story, is not unique.

We slept in cars, bought groceries with food stamps and prayed for a better day. When that wasn't enough, I put myself through school at Emory University and took a part-time job as a staff writer at the Atlanta Journal Constitution. That was over a decade ago.

Along the way, things got better. I've been an executive at two Fortune 500 companies and a practice director at two multinational public relations firms. Today, I own an advertising agency and I've authored two novels. A third and fourth are on the way, God willing. All of this was possible because somebody laid a brick or two on the road for me.

A few weeks ago, I woke in tears. It was my 40th birthday and certainly not a time for sadness. Rather, I cried in joy because for the first time I realized and could embrace the value of the struggle. The bright little girl, who once cried in my arms because we didn't know where we were going to live, was headed off to Brown University . The small boy who had been the "man of the house" far too soon was now truly a man. And the tiny, angelic baby who had come to this world precious and innocent just 15 months after him was now a 16 year old girl headed out to her first job interview.

For all of this, maybe I should be proud of a woman like Sarah Palin. Maybe, just maybe, I should be rejoicing in John McCain's selected running mate.

But I'm not.

I am not a "bed wetting liberal" nor am I a "right-wing zealot." What I am is a working mother. And I cry foul.

I won't, for a moment, denigrate her experience or lob spit balls at her family. I will, though, take issue with what she knows. Or more succinctly, what she does not know. Living in Alaska , I'm not sure how much she knows about the people living in inner city Baltimore I don't know how much she cares about the 125 murders this summer in Chicago I have no idea what she believes about HIV/ AIDS and the havoc it wrecks on Black women or the cancer rates in East St. Louis . She hasn't said nary a word about Hurricane Katrina or the infant mortality rates in Appalachia .

I do know that she's a life-time member of the NRA, a proponent of individuals who wielded the very weapons that killed my father and brother. I do know that she "lives really close to Russia ," but I'm not so certain she is ready for Putin. I know she wanted to ban books for public libraries and sex education in schools, but that her 17 year old is pregnant and preparing for a shotgun wedding. I know that she loves her husband enough to allow him (and probably did herself) use her office to settle a personal score--one that the McCain campaign would now like to cover up under a blanket of Juneau snow. I know that the Alaska Independent Party, and its secessionist platform, was enticing enough for her to attend its conference (and for her husband to become a card carrying member). Does she love her country? I'm sure. Enough to support those who want to leave it.

But I have no earthly idea what she knows (or could possibly know) about national domestic policy or foreign diplomacy. For all of her working class values, she never once mentioned the Middle Class in her diatribe that mocked her opponent's experience. Having been the mayor of Wasilla (pop. 6,000 at the time) and governor of Alaska (a state a smaller than the county I live in) for a little over a year, she felt she was qualified to do that. And obviously, so did John McCain.

If she's qualified, then so am I.

But in this country I love, she has been afforded the ability to run. The very constitution she says doesn't apply to the men at Guantanamo says she can. But this is about more than that.

As Gloria Steinem said in a recent Los Angeles Times editorial, "Feminism has never been about getting a job for one woman. It's about making life more fair for women everywhere. It's not about a piece of the existing pie; there are too many of us for that. It's about baking a new pie."

The good news is thanks to Shirley Chisholm, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Angela Davis, Condoleeza Rice, Anita Hill, Madeline Albright, Maxine Waters, Kathleen Sebelius, Hilary Rodham Clinton and a slew of others, there are 18 million proverbial cracks in the ceiling. Our collective political and economic power is due to the strides (and leaps) they, and others, took on my behalf.

I am grateful. I am deeply humbled to stand on the bricks they'd laid before me.

But, whatever our struggle was (and is) that last thing I want is to be patronized. Just as I cannot support just any African American who decides to offer themselves up for public service, I will not toss my vote to someone just because we share the same chromosome mix. To do so would dishonor the vow I made to my children, to myself. I did not vote for Al Sharpton, wasn't old enough (nor would I have) voted for Jesse Jackson and I certainly will not support Sarah Palin. Identity politics, especially in this case, are a sham of the worst order.

When I cast my vote, it will be for people who will lay more bricks for people like me. It will be for people who will put diplomacy before war, challenge us all to provide healthcare for the sick, help another child go to college, and check the special interests in Washington .

This fall, I'm not looking for a woman. I'm looking for a brick layer.

I could care less if that person hasn't spent "enough" time in Washington or can "properly field dress a moose". I could care less if that person likes hockey, soccer, football or table tennis. I could care less if they graduated from Harvard or the University of Iowa I'm a Christian, but I could care less if they are down with Deuteronomy, Leviticus or Numbers. I want them to uphold the Constitution.

So no, I will not sit idly by as they attempt to suspend habeas corpus at Guantanamo Bay, engage wiretaps on American citizens without a warrant, and hide behind executive privilege when they are caught firing attorney generals based on how well they tow the Republican line. I won't let them cost us $12 billion a month fighting a war that should have never been authorized and never been waged. Not while working people lose their homes to predatory lenders and watch as we bail out the financial institutions that created the housing crisis.

I will not, in the name of history, vote for a woman like Sarah Palin who does not share my values.

But here's what I will do.

I will continue raising money for Barack Obama. I will get on the phone again and call people in distant states I've never met. I will e-mail, call, and knock on doors until the final vote is cast. I do this, not because he shares my skin, but because I admire his principals and he shares my values. I do this because Barack Obama is more than a community organizer, he is a bricklayer. And he sees -- just as he sees the light in Michelle's eyes -- my struggle, my worth as a woman.

Desperate Act Of a Desperate Old Man

Kimberly — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 03:34:43 EDT

Does McCain think women are so baseless that we would vote for any woman at all? That we are so desperate to have a woman in office that we would run to his side because he pick a woman as a running mate? His pick of a no name Governor from Alaska is the Desperate Act Of a Desperate Old Man. McCain Insults ALL Women!

Posts with the tag Woman Voters

Witness to History

A Woman's Worth

Desperate Act Of a Desperate Old Man