Zero Sum

I am so disheartened by the state of discourse in this country. I want to take a vacation that allows me to spend at least three days in a spin-free zone (except I can't because I am an admitted news junkie).

So, I watch, cringe, sigh and generally wonder where the hell am I?

I do not recall that politics was this brutal twenty + years ago when my addiction first started. I was a kid in high school and the issue was abortion. The position of my school was that abortion was morally wrong, and until a bomb went off near the bus stop not too far from where I stood every morning to take the bus to that school, my position was the same--abortion was wrong. But after that clinic was bombed and I just happened to have been standing there a few hours earlier before it went off, my opinion changed. I was politicized.

Back then, I did not think poorly of my classmates who fervently believed the total opposite--I accepted that we had different points of view and carried on as girls in high school around that time did. I watched and sang along to raunchy Madonna videos just like they did, played Prince records backwards in search of the demonic under-currents just like they did, and I went to church every Sunday (me Baptist, they Catholic) as well. We all continued with our lives.

When some of my classmates and teachers expressed their affinity for President Reagan, I trumpeted my support of Jesse Jackson. They weren't racists--they were just Republicans and I was a Democrat...that was that. Again, we continued to eat lunch in the cafeteria, take classes together and plan our class activities without any drama. When we disagreed about the need for a Black History program during school hours, we debated the topic and at the end of the day, the school administration made the final decision. When it came time for me to participate in an essay contest about what it meant to be an American, I won an honorable mention.

Fast forward and now I worry if my liberal views will lead some of my former classmates to de-friend me on Facebook. And I wonder if their political opposition to the President is based on some deep-yet-undiscovered lack of confidence in his intellect because he is black. How did I become so cynical?

I went to an HBCU and joined a black sorority. Does this make me anti-white or anti-male? I taught African American history, but I also taught American Government so do I get extra credit? I live in the city and hate the suburbs because I think living out in the middle of nowhere isn't idyllic, it is scary. My husband works for the government because he is a true believer in the power of the government to provide a fair process for everyone--he is neither a redistributionist or a socialist. If my mother in law doesn't speak English fluently after living here for more than 50 years, what harm is she doing to anyone but herself?

Isn't the beauty of this country our ability to be 300 million different individual kings, queens, queers, studs, mammas, poppas, patriots, vegans, carnivores, entrpreneurs, entertainers, ball-players, ball-makers, haters, lovers, friends or foes all inhabiting the same land mass from sea to shining sea?