An Open Letter, for Election Day

I was kind of irritated today. So, I wrote this. I'm going to post it, but I don't think it's as eloquent as my heart wants to be. Maybe some day.



Dear Mr. Would-be President,

Have you been out here? I don't mean cyberspace, because clearly you've staked your claim, poked poles in the ground and thrown up the celebratory and appropriate tents. I mean here. Out here. On this street. This street I'm walking right this minute in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, for instance. It's a lot like a lot of other streets in this country. And people out here are crying. Now, you may not be able to hear them, I think, because I think you have to have your heart attuned properly to really get the finer nuances of it. But they are definitely crying. I hear it while I watch the young mother holding her son's hand as she walks through what you might call a ghetto neighborhood. I don't consider it that, really. It's a neighborhood. There are some people hanging out on stoops, maybe they're making rude and insolent comments toward her. Maybe she's not really in the mood for it, mostly because every day she has to walk this block and keep her son's hand close to hers, keep her son's heart close to hers and fence a cage of fierce loyal love around him, keeping him safe. And in ten years, if she's lucky, maybe he won't be the one on the stoop making comments at women walking by. Maybe you've been out to this street, but I haven't heard much of it. I've heard talk about Iraq this and jobs that and yes, all of these things are important. But they aren't as important as the people here. The one's that pay you to think on the difficult matters and more importantly than that, lead.

Yes, lead. This country hasn't had a leader in years. You can rhapsodize all you might about whomever you feel has most represented your particular ideology most recently, Reagan, Clinton, Kennedy, Nixon, whomever. But there is a difference between being a politician and being a leader. And frankly, what we need right about now is a leader. This is the kind of person whose words would carry the gravitas of truth and compassion and empathy. And with those rare bubbly pieces of the cauldron, it would also encompass ideas and plans and goals and dreams. Yes, have a dream. There is nothing more important than that. Dr. King was, clearly, onto something.

I have heard of studies that show that the larger the influence of mass produced televised media, the greater difficulty children have of imagining things. I think this is the most important thing. I don't care what your viewpoint is (wild neo-conservative-I'm-going-to-get-rich-and-stay-safe-and-white-and-christian-if-it-kills-the-entire-world or something more akin to vague-platitudes-and-decrying-the-former-viewpoint), what this country needs is imagination. A reversal of the past 20 years, I think, would be a good place to start. An imagining of what this world might look like if a woman could walk through even a bad part of town and not feel that she has to react violently every step of the way in order to defend her soul, her livelihood, and her own children. This is the world that we have wrought and I don't think it is the world that any of us imagined. This is the world where we de-fund education, over-test our children, expect them to fail, and then create the economic and social conditions where they can live down to those standards. And then use that lack of success as justification for some other machiavellian re-arrangement of priorities. What kind of a world would we live in if we actually DID care about the children -- and not just the unborn, white, christian ones? Even the ones that are forced into a situation that is untenable. It's not an unimaginable place. Sure, it may seem like a utopia to some. A kind of far away paradise that you get postcards about, but have never had the pleasure of visiting.

A leader maybe has a collection of those postcards. Maybe even a roadmap. Not a series of useless backwards, Orwellian platitudes. A leader has seen this street. Has even walked on it a few times. Maybe even rented an apartment and heard the screams at night, the squealing tires in the middle of the day. Seen the young mother and her beautiful, adorable child struggling to make it home at night. Carrying her tiny load of groceries. A leader would walk beside her and insist that he know more. That he help more. Because there is so much more help to do and so much more knowledge to have. And the people on this street, the people on every street in this country are crying out for that leader.

I know people will toss the platitude, "lead and the leaders will follow." But I would counter and say that is exactly what I am saying. If you say you are a leader, prove it. Go out there and feel this world. And then feel that there is nothing more important than leading that vision of a better world. If you actually search this deep inside yourself and outside, as well, you may begin to understand what it takes to be a real humanitarian, a real leader -- and not just another politician.