Election Day, November 4, 2014
(photo by D.Vandiver)
Today is the day, friends. The day to VOTE.
This is the day when we get a chance to be citizens and constituents, rather than just consumers. Today is the day this nation decides party control over the House and Senate, decides who will address the looming issues of raising the minimum wage, immigration reform, equal pay, and – let us not forget – going back to war.
In New Orleans, many judicial races will be decided today – criminal court, domestic court, juvenile court… Today we elect the people who will decide who goes to jail, who gets custody in a domestic violence case, whether or not your child gets a second chance… Beloveds, in a state that incarcerates more people per capita than any other state in the country, this election matters.
Wherever you live, it is the local elections that will most immediately shape your community. What happens in Washington, DC certainly impacts us, but rarely as intimately as local policy and enforcement.
If you are young – please vote! If you are an elder – please vote! If you are in the sandwich generation – please vote!
If you can vote, please vote.
If you voted early, well done!
If you, like me, plan to vote today – don’t forget!
Vote today.
There are 2,867,473 registered voters in the state of Louisiana. Almost 2.9 million possible voters! Let’s see what it looks like when we all show up to choose the people who will make the decisions that shape our schools and our families, our courts and our country.
With gratitude to everyone who can vote today and grief for all of those denied the right to vote through the gutting of the Voters’ Rights Act and other egregious practices, I wish each of you well. May this election day end with leaders elected who care about you, your families, and our planet.
Go forth in peace and vote!
PS: In Orleans Parish, mark your calendar to vote on Dec. 6th, too! The state legislature has tried to do an end run around the Orleans Parish School Board (OPSB) and give away its money and control to the Recovery School District (RSD) through a millage vote that doesn’t even list the RSD in the summary that will appear on the ballot. It is slick, my friends, and it is as wrong as having to work on Mardi Gras day. Mark your calendars for Dec. 6th and vote NO on the grand theft masquerading as an education millage.
Responsibility
One of the major themes of this election cycle has been one of individualism vs. “collectivism.” The argument of those on the individualist side seems to be that people need to take responsibility for themselves. If we do too much to shelter people from the harsher realities of life, then, it seems, people will lose initiative to take care of themselves and will become dependent on the system to support them.
I can see the point of this argument. We have all known people who seemed to feel like the world owed them a favor, who didn’t seem to want to step up to the plate and take responsibility.
But here’s the thing: I don’t think you really understand what it means to be responsible until you start taking some responsibility for more than your own little life. Certainly, the whole idea of what it meant to be responsible changed drastically the moment I became a parent. Suddenly, working and paying my household bills seemed like a trivial task compared with the need to make sure that nutritious meals turned up on time, that baths and clean clothes and bedtime all happened at the appropriate moments, that enriching opportunities for learning and growth appeared—without any pressure or agenda. And all those tasks are minor compared with the responsibility of providing just the right blend of openness and limits, of connection and independence, of work and play and rest. And we won’t even go into what it takes to maintain a loving composure in the face of two-year-old temper tantrums or the eye-rolling snideness of a teen.
Being responsible for a child is a massive undertaking. But it’s only the beginning. Those of us who are truly responsible know that we have responsibilities to our neighbors. We clean up after our dogs, and shovel our sidewalks when it snows. And if you’re going to participate in a democracy then you have a responsibility to make your vote count, to be informed, to weigh in on those matters that concern you, whether it be a traffic light in front of your local school or a giant oil pipeline running across your country. When tragedy hits across the world in the form of a hurricane or a tsunami and we reach out to help, we might realize that our responsibilities don’t end with the borders of our own particular country.
In fact, our responsibilities reach out across time as well as space. Do we not have some obligation to hand off to our children and our neighbors’ children an earth that is still hospitable and green, not to mention an education system that prepares the next generation for a future we can’t quite imagine?
Yes, I’m all in favor of personal responsibility. But I think we haven’t begun to touch our responsibilities until we’ve committed ourselves as broadly and deeply as possible to the health and well-being of all those whom our lives touch.