Wednesday, in its own nutshell, was completely reflective of the entire weeklong experience. Started out in the morning roaming, and filming students, at the University of Pittsburgh (“Pitt”), a large private university in the middle of the city…gorgeous buildings, open city campus…I can’t say enough about how nice everyone was in Pittsburgh, it seems so “livable” there (I was joking that while most people I know say they want to move to Bali, or Hawaii, or someplace exotic, Pittsburgh seems like a good place to me!)…Rust Belt meets edge of Midwest meets edge of East Coast…incredible architecture…way cooler than Cleveland, not as northeast of a vibe as Philly…
Anyway, we moved from there, heading west to Ohio…our interim stops were to interview two first-time voters who live in a town about ½ hour outside of Pittsburgh called Donora…I had been introduced via email to two people who had never voted before (because they had never registered in previous years) by Tina Jones, a woman whom I emailed after having googled “Obama and Pittsburgh” a few weeks ago, and got her phone number and email address…amazing how technology has played such a part in what My First Vote is doing, I cannot even imagine what we would be doing…and, “how?”…these two fellow church members of Tina turned out to be two African-Americans, Nycole Wilkins, 30 years old, and Joe Williams, 54. We first visited Joe in his apartment in Donora, a town with no one on the streets at Noon on a weekday, except for 3 residents of an assisted living home for mentally challenged people down the street…as we were crossing the river to Donora, I had to call Joe for alternative directions because our Bus was too high to fit under the bridge overhang…within his first five words, Joe would say to/ask me, as a connective point of understanding, “Ya’ dig?”…I was suddenly in a jazz riff with him…the conversation for directions was peppered throughout with “ya’ dig?”, as Joe got us through to an alternative route…Joe’s walk-up apartment, in classic Midwest style 3 story housing, was sparsely furnished, and the warmth from Joe, his openness, filled the room. Joe is about 5’6”, maybe 200 pounds, gold loops in each ear. As it turns out, Joe had never voted before because he was a felon in the penitentiary for many years, now a recovering drug addict, admitting to being addicted to drugs for more than half his life. People had told him that he couldn’t vote, so he never bothered to check it out. Leaning down against his kitchen sink, Joe told us that he was “saved” five years ago, embracing full-on his Christianity…he has turned his life around completely, and is so excited to now vote, loving that there is a Black man running for President, humbled to be able to engage in the kinds of citizenship that “regular people” can. Joyous to be part of the process. And (literally), every third word/phrase throughout the 10-minute conversation was “ya’ dig?”…Joe had his own unique rhythm, and the depth of his most pure of sentiments was truly humbling….I felt as though if any eligible voter, of ANY age, saw a snippet of Joe’s clarity, the sense of importance in what he is about to do for the first time, they would have no choice but to cast their vote on Election Day…they couldn’t come away and say “my vote deson’t matter”, or “what’s the big deal?”…it IS a big deal…
We then drove to meet up with Nycole, a very attractive mulatto-skinned woman, who got pregnant at 15…had a daughter at 16 who is now 14. Blew my mind that Nycole and I have kids the same age, Nycole herself being old enough to be my daughter. We visited with her outside of her place of employment, a Rehab Center, where she is a social worker, kind of in the middle of “nowhere” in Western PA…at her Church one day there was a voter registration drive, with Tina heading it up…her daughter told Tina that her mom was not registered to vote…Nycole said her kid “shamed her into it”, she just never had given voting much thought…and then, once she was registered, she felt a part of being a citizen in a different way…I often am shocked when who I think someone may be does not link up with actually who they are…I would have, just by the way she looked (half-Black, young, kind of sexy) assumed that she would be voting for Obama…and, as soon as she answered the question, “what are the isues that are most important to you in this election?”, with “as a Christian,…”, I knew that Obama didn’t have Nycole Wilkins’ vote. The candidates’ stance on the right to an abortion is the single most important issue for her…her position on that issue seemingly having been formed as a young mother who chose to keep her unexpected child, even after considering having an abortion...firmly believing that the right for a woman to choose abortion as an option should not exist…I again thought, as I have so many times over the years, that it feels wrong that the people who want to deny women the right to choose are called “pro-life”…as if those of us who are PRO-CHOICE are against life…and, regardless of anything else, I was so honored to be in the presence of someone who wanted to share their story with us, their viewpoint, a piece of their soul…Nycole and her clarity, and her willingness to investigate the issues, and her wonderful sense of self (with her daughter telling her to vote for Obama) moved me so much…I feel that I have become more open this week, at least about the bigger view into the variety of points of view, where people come from…at least when those opinions are coming from one’s personal value systems, and not simply motivated by ignorance, hate, or other foundations of divisiveness that I have seen so prevalent as well…watching TV for a brief moment in the motel lobby the other morning, there was a pro-McCain ad that was paid for by a fear-mongering private organization that can stay outside of the rules that still somewhat limit the bullshit that candidates can say about each other…it was incredible..we never see this stuff in New York…out here, in the Purple states, where many people still wavering on their choice, where fear is powerful, where issues of race are like a heated skillet, some people will do or say anything to stay in power…and, support the old paradigm…to not give up the mantle…to perpetuate ways that are not working…we have no idea what will happen in the next couple of weeks…what will be thrown out there…
We drove to Ohio, and went to the Parking Lot at the WalMart in Mt. Vernon, Ohio, the next town to Gambier, Ohio, home of Kenyon College, in Gambier, Ohio, the place that had originally been Maia’s first choice college…where she and I had visited in the Spring…we got there after nightfall, and interviewed a first time voter, Jeff, a local kid from Mt. Vernon...we were all freezing outside, the temperature had dropped drastically in those few hours we had been driving…Jeff is a McCain supporter…the issues important to him? Abortion, the War, Gun Control…
It may only be 5 minutes from WalMart to Kenyon, but it might as well have been the distance (in miles and politics) between Alaska and Greenwich Village…it’s not just that the physical campus at Kenyon is extraordinarily beautiful, the place where HARRY POTTER was going to be filmed if they had elected to shoot in the States…it’s the student body itself…mostly white, privileged, incredibly well informed and engaged…and, surely, so many are sheltered from some of the economic issues and immediate consequences that are sitting there on the dinner table in Mt. Vernon, or Donora or so many of the places that we have seen…it’s all interesting, to me…and, according to every Kenyon student we talked to, one more engaged than the next, EVERY student there is voting for Obama…and, I could not help but feel at that moment that regardless of the difference in opportunities, or possibilities, or religions or hometowns or political views or degrees of being informed, every person we talk(ed) to does ultimately want the same thing…a life that feels meaningful to them (even if they don’t even ask themselves what that might even mean) or, at the very least, one filled with hope for them and their families…the OneNess of us all has been hitting us every day…
Here are some pieces that we posted yesterday/today...the first one is Joe, the second and third a troupe of musicians/folk-singers (the blonde woman, Colleen Kattau, has been called a female Pete Seeger) who are traveling through the Purple States performing in an effort to get the youth vote out...I encountered them yesterday at Ohio State, stopped them, and asked them to perform impromptu...their are a group of them traveling, maybe 10 in all, they have been organized by the folk singer, Holly Near...
http://www.myfirstvote.tv/video/71/wake-up-tour-sing-out-the-vote
http://www.myfirstvote.tv/video/70/wake-up-tour-sing-out-the-vote-only-1
Ya dig?
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