On The Eve of The Dawn of a Brand New Day

FEELING THE MOMENTOUSNESS OF THIS TIME I think back, as many others are doing. For I do feel we are on the cusp of great change. I don’t pretend to know what those specifics are, but of this I have no doubt.

My political involvement began, I romantically think to myself, when I was in utero and my mother was nine months pregnant and dancing at a Janis Joplin concert. Which is another way of saying I was born into a time of political upheaval, into the aura and range of politically-conscious music, and into the home(s) and lessons (even when unconscious) of politically aware youth. And as the essays saying “goodbye to Vietnam Era Politics” are noting these days, that time shaped me and my lens and always will to a certain degree. It had something to do with my taking to the streets of NYC in 2004 to protest the criminal Bush administration and GOP as they heinously pranced on the ashes of the WTC for their breathtakingly cynical choice of convention grounds. It has something to do with my focus on encroaching police powers and presence and abuse of the citizens. It has something to do with my resistance to even listening to what the government is saying about most things. It has a lot to do with my being utterly comfortable with that.

I’m not saying that’s all changed now. I’m not going to make some grand sweeping declaration that will embarrass me when the Obama administration decides to fund and thus fully implement Plan Mexico or takes some other disastrous stance that sweeps under the radar of popular notice and opinion but wounds the world, not to mention me and my beliefs and even mi gente y familia. There is much to be concerned about now, nothing is fixed, nothing is settled, nothing is guaranteed. The earth and her People are bleeding and our lives and futures are in danger.

And yet, something has changed. Something is most definitely changing.

This word “hope” that began as the perfect brand with the perfect font and the perfect poster icon and the perfect poster man (“boy” here would feel wrong, even though typically used in this way) is now something else. Has been fleshed out into something else by the stinking, fetid Cheyne-Stokes breathing of the GOP and apparent popular rejection of that stank. McCain and Company have forced a decision, a crux and confrontation. Instead of championing what could have been a return to traditional conservatism or even a Mavericky new Republicanism, Palin/McCain faltered, weakened, listened to dread whispers in the dark of their minds. They decided to unholster the cursed bone horn of Destruction and blow through it as if with a last, desperate, horrific wail that summon the demons and darkness of soul laying inert or anxious within the human condition.

Socialist. Muslim. Marxist. Terrorist. Radical. Communist. Celebrity but Vacuous. Entertaining but Devoid of Substance and Always Dangerous. Not One of Us. Not Like Us. Secretly Planning to Undo Us. They have erected Fear of Other into a towering golem with eyes of blood and fire. THIS IS WHAT WE ARE they say, with their actions every day. But the long-championed Golem turns out to have knees of rubber and an empty skull.

I can’t even keep track of the hateful, ugly, insinuations that have permeated this campaign season. The atmosphere has, at turns, saddened me beyond belief as well as brought me to a boiling point barely contained, and in all cases, fueled my creativity and need to document it all. And in doing so, I have grown a hope of my own. That perhaps this community organizer with a background that inculcates the potential to understand a changed and changing world and culture can be made to listen to the People and not dictate like some Deciders ignorantly and destructively have done prior. He boldly admits he will speak to other (“hated”) leaders. He talks about change from the bottom up. He is nuanced of thought and intelligent and beholden to no extreme line. He believes in talking honestly and earnestly to us. He respects us. He respects himself. He believes in taking risk for what is right. He believes in the importance of Art to a culture—

I have to pause to tear up on that one. Because you see, in being an artist all my life and in studying other cultures (such as when writing my children’s book on Egypt) I realized how little my own country appreciated the only thing that makes me feel I have a purpose in this world. If I have a God, you see, it is the creative force within that speaks to me and shows me worlds and gives me words that seem beyond my own making and ability. My religion is my connection with my art. And the GOP de-funds and despises the arts, injects toxic memes and actions into our culture (such as shutting down controversial exhibits, etc) and has run the nation for too long and thus has made it clear how they see me. Not only as a “Liberal” or “Lefty” or a member of a minority (O, but are us Latin@s really much of a “minority” anymore?) but as an Artist—what I feel is the core of me.

All these things and more give me hope. A real hope. A hope that there is potential now. And when a person believes in potential, s/he will make effort. If one sees no potential to be heard, or to thrive, one eventually does not speak, one withers. And this isn’t about me. This is about all of us. Because our hope and belief that anything could change has been battered and bruised and spat upon and abused. And the effects have been horrific to witness on multiple levels.

More than the predictably vile GOP, I’ve been saddened by those particular “Liberals” who yet resist voting for Obama for reasons they stack up and swear up and down are rational and based in ANYTHING but race…but when examined as a whole, really can only be rooted in racist fear or resistance. (Nuance alert: No, I’m not saying If You Don’t Vote For Obama You Are Racist, Thnx!) The arguments sound somewhat sane and dryly plausible taken longwinded-by-longwinded one…but when put into context of the alternative to a Democrat in the White House and this particular Democrat at this particular time, fall apart.

Even as one imbued with an excess of imagination, I have fallen short. I never imagined that should so many people come to love and believe in and work for an American Presidential Candidate, they would be seen as a cult. Or that the massive crowds would be condemned as reminiscent of Fascism. Or that when a candidate FINALLY actually ran on reducing lobbyists power and instead was mainly funded by citizens’ small but profuse contributions that s/he would be called corrupt for that.

Or, to be honest, that I would live to see this day. A day a man looking and sounding like Obama could or would come this far in our culture and country.

And all of this forces me to rearrange some mental scenery and structures. (Hell, lately I found myself wondering when the first openly gay president would be elected. Now I honestly feel it’s only a matter of time.) I am glad for that. Even as much as I personally strive to be mentally fluid and naturally feel I am a bit unbound by conventional thinking, I am 39. The era of my youth is no more. Even the machines of my youth are antiques or obsolete by now, replaced by Sci-Fi apparatus (Hello, beloved iPhone!). So I am not exempt from a hardening of the thought process. And this shifting all about offers me the chance to open my mind to a degree I did not foresee. I am so grateful for this.

And I hope—here I am with that HOPE again!—I hope that this energy carries on. That we all carry on with this decision to work for a new day and a new way of seeing. A way out of the hate and the fear and the small-minded paradigms that keep us running in circles as we try to spiral up to the Top of the Shining Heap. That we all continue to open our minds and our hearts; that we continue this veering away from the gross, ugly, decrepit, monster of racism. That we marginalize and contain the flailing extremists and white supremacists. That we turn away from this inhuman and anti-human Othering that encourages us to reflexively fear Gays and Transpeople and disabled people and differently-sexed people and Iranians and Asians and Muslims and Iraqis and Venezuelans and Mexicans and yes, still, African Americans.

I hope that Obama’s undocumented Aunt is used by her nephew to show the nation that migrants are not the Dangerous Other, either. What a perfect opportunity! (We know that the People need personal faces and symbols for many positive cultural shifts in awareness, e.g., Karen Carpenter = Anorexia; Michael J. Fox = Parkinsons; Christopher Reeves = Stem Cells, etc). Here we have Zeituni Onyang, a black, undocumented, poor, woman, migrant—pretty much at the bottom of USA heirarchy and for as much, normally given abuse, hate, neglect or simply ignored—and she is a relative of this soon-to-be President! This face/symbol of Obama with the highest favorability rating ever for such a politician, coming in and purportedly ushering forth this era of cultural change. A perfect opportunity. Will Obama rise to the challenge? Because as happy as I am with so much that is coming undone, and coming together, still the conversation about immigrants in this “nation of immigrants” remains woefully untouched and relegated to areas where nobody has to look at it or do much about it, and as a whole only profit from the entire system. This issue is an inescapable step in this new conversation. If we try to go around it, we end up with millions still being exploited and pain and harm still rippling on all levels of our culture. And then all the talk of a new day means nada pero hipocresía. If this dialogue is to be real, if there is, indeed, “No Fake Americans” then there is no reason we are sending these Americans-in-Spirit and Action to detention camps, processing them as criminals when their infractions are civil, and all in order to continue funding our Prison Industrial Complex—and yet still leaving enough in place to prop up our economy.

No reason except the same ones that Palin/McCain have run on.

It is a new day, indeed. I feel it, too. I am working for it, too. Let us come together now and carry this beautiful energy and philosophy that is rising, and let us carry it into all corners of this land. And all lands, while we are dreaming and hoping and planning. Let us first and finally begin to banish these ghosts wringing forth blood from our souls and truly be(come) that New America that we now dare to dream of en masse.

La Lucha Continua.