Register To Vote – Lift Every Voice
My Boy Won Fish Too Fish Read Fish Blue Fish has a message for you.
Aight, I’m going to attempt to tackle a topic I’ve never tackled
before… could go well, could get pushed to the side like grandma’s bland
vegetable medley… not the grandma that puts thought and effort into her
cooking, but the other one, the one who you know just sits there the
day before the meal watching Jeopardy and her stories instead of checking
her spice cabinet to make sure there’s actually some seasoning salt in
the three Lawry’s containers in there… knowing she ran out last
November and just couldn’t find the energy to get up off her couch to go buy
some new Lawry’s even tho she goes to play bingo thrice a week…
Today’s topic is not all that far fetched… but to many of us, it is
foreign. Remember hearing the ice cream truck coming onto your block? Not sure how your neighborhood rolled but mine always had the sound of Pop Goes The weasel or that other
one… Dada Da Da Da DAh… da-da-da DaDa DaDAT daDAT DAH!. When you heard that sound, you ran to the dresser or to the cushions in your family sofa or some of you even
ran to your parents’ pocketbooks (some with and some without the parents’
knowledge)… and you headed out to meet that truck before it made it to
the corner.
You rush up to the side of it and you’d be out of breath were it not
for the adrenaline pumping in you and the thrill that in seven minutes
tops, you’d have yourself one helluva frozen treat in your hand… maybe
even two!
You squint your eyes, get a comfortable thinking stance as you survey the side of the
truck… and you say to yourself ‘uhmm… which one do I want??’ Now quickly, let’s revisit the situation… imagine that every time that ice cream truck came a rollin’ thru your block… you knew you would
get ice cream every time… but that you weren’t in control of which ice
cream you got.Not sure about you, but I’d say of the 25 options on the side of the truck, I only
liked about 4 of them… Chaco Taco being the top choice, then maybe a
tie between the Drumstick and the Strawberry Shortcake.Other than that… I rather not have
anything… so chances are if I were giving anything at random… I wouldn’t be all
that excited about the truck coming around.
Recognize where I’m headed here?The difference in the two situations above is the element of
individual choice.Things chosen for us are far less attractive than things we choose
ourselves. The element of ‘options’… Women understand options every time they go out clubbing… when have you ever just thrown on an outfit and walked out of the house without
changing
Now let’s keep a hold of this ‘freedom of choice’ topic. Let’s step back from items so
personal to us as clothing and frozen treats on pop sickle sticks… and let’s
visit something many of us choose to stay away from.
“You know, they said this day would never come,” said
Obama, who was frequently interrupted with cheers as he spoke. “They
said our sights were set too high. They said this country was too divided,
too disillusioned to ever come together around a common
purpose.”
Continued Obama, “But on this January night, at this
defining moment in history, you have done what the cynics said we
couldn’t do.”…so said Obama following his decisive victory in the Iowa
primaries.
I’ll be honest… I was another cynic. I just knew that no matter how much momentum the clean
cut campaign of Sen. Obama gathered, it would not be enough to change the
minds of so many Americans who are not ready for a black
President.The truth behind it was… I wasn’t ready for a black President myself. I’ve battled constantly with my close friends over why I’ve never
been head over heels about politics.
Whoever is sitting in the oval office, or in city hall… or in
the governor’s mansion is so far removed from little ol’ me that there
is no reason in me picking between cookie cutter candidate A and cookie
cutter candidate B.
The world will still have its issues and some new people get featured in a
CNN corruption investigation… a few more pockets get padded with
campaign funding, bigger wigged big wigs sit down at the table with the new
hotness for the next four to eight years… but at the end of the day, my
people are still in the same spot on the stoop of the brownstone
wondering where life went wrong and when change is gonna come.
Wellp… change is here and it’s got funny ears. I monitored the major news websites Thursday night waiting for the
official results from the Iowa primary elections in a bit of disbelief
but mostly a new emotion that I don’t feel all that often. Optimism… Hope… Excitement.
I know I introduced that last
statement saying I felt ‘a’ new emotion and not ‘three’ new emotions but hey,
I’m new to this… get off my back!
The truth is: I need this man to win. I can’t fully describe how great it feels to see the nation has embraced him.
To put trust in
this young man without the traditional background of what our nation’s
forefathers had in mind when they defined the documents that forged the
history pages of our supreme United States. Divided as these states have been, the solution has never seemed so fresh and so clean as things appear now… At least to
me.
I can’t promise that he will go on to win the necessary
Primary elections and I can’t sit here and claim he is definitely on the
path to land on the ballot come the real deal… I can’t even promise
that if elected to the Presidency, he will be the wave of fresh soapy
water that cleans the filthy walls of the white house that we all hope he
will be.
I can only express
how I felt after this initial victory and that I urge those of you
reading who feel a little touched by this milestone, who feel the way I
feel about being able to decide if I want a Chaco Taco or a Drumstick,
who are tired of sitting back waiting for the world to change and want to
be a part of the movement that changes it.
If you are an Illinois resident and have not yet registered to
vote… you have until Tuesday (January 8th) to register to vote in our primary election on February
5th.
For whatever state you
live in, you can google how to register if you have not done so
already… Don’t do what I have done over the last few elections… Don’t sit back
and assume our state will push him onto the ballot… sure he’s got a
lot of support but imagine how great it looks to see him win Iowa with
38% of the reported precincts and how amazing it will be to see him win
Illinois by 70% or maybe 85%!! Every extra bit of support helps.
Iowa reported some areas had tripled the amount of voters
than they’d seen in prior elections.
More people are making their way to the polls and it shows in
the results.
