![[Valid RSS]](http://marryinggeorgeclooney.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/valid-rss-rogers.png "Validate my RSS feed")
got HOPE?
“maybe we weren’t ready for a black man.”
that’s what my friend said to me today.
“maybe we weren’t ready for a black man. he’s not a shark, he’s not a barracuda. he’s more like a spiritual leader, he’s more thoughtful, kind, contemplative. he’s not a street fighter, or a thug. you know, he’s up against thugs and bullies.”
yes he is.
yes we are.
i think we were ready for a black man. i think what’s happening in this country is scary, and god-awful and makes me quake in my rubber-boots. i think what’s happening is exactly what we needed. because we needed to see the god-awful hatred and the sickening bigotry and all the fear and viciousness and righteousness that’s right in our own backyards. we needed it illuminated. we needed for it to shine right in our eyes. we needed to witness the dumbing down of america; all the snooki’s and kardasian’s, and all the crap reality TV shows, and we needed to witness with our own two eyes the vile headlock we’ve been in for the past few months.
we need to stand up and say, NO MORE.
we need to get up off-line and get out onto the streets and we need to take back what it is we love and fought for and believe in. we voted for HOPE and CHANGE and now we’re all – at least most people i know – feeling HOPELESS and scared to death.
we need to get off face-book for one entire day and get out into our communities and make a ruckus. we need to believe once again in the power and greatness of the human spirit.
i’m witnessing friends losing their homes, and losing their faith. i’m watching my husband worry about his retirement going down the tubes again. i’m seeing people on bread-lines, and watching stores closing. i’m hearing from friends who are so depressed and worried that they want to take their own lives because they can’t take THIS LIFE anymore. people long to feel wanted & needed. useful & creative. people long to be inspired & encouraged. people long to have opportunities & choices in every area of their lives.
i read about mothers and fathers killing their newborns, their babies, and then i drive on highways, and i read the billboards that say: abortion is murder.
i pull up behind a car with a bumper sticker that reads: BLACK IS NOT BEAUTIFUL.
i pass our local church and see the food-lines wrapping around the block – women & men with babies, and kids & teens standing in the holy shit devastating heat – on a friday night at 6:30 because there are no jobs.
and yesterday at 5:15 PM i stood on line at the pharmacy, and witnessed a dying woman from my community being told by the pharmacist that she lost her healthcare and she said, “i will die without this medication.”
no, she won’t. because i have to believe, with every fiber in my being, that we won’t let her die. we will not let people die because their medication has a higher price tag then their life.
to all those politicians out there who want to keep the people of this country afraid and worried and sick; who want us to believe that the black man is the wrong man to lead this country, to all those congressman and senators who went on vacation and left this country hanging by a thread. to all the folks who think that selling us a bunch of tea-bags filled with hatred and righteousness: i say to all of you: fuck you. none of you get to take away HOPE.
i voted for change.
i voted for hope.
he’s in the white house.
is he perfect? no.
but neither am i.
Category: Uncategorized 16 comments »
August 6th, 2011 at 11:49 pm
Amy. you channeled my despair.
August 6th, 2011 at 11:59 pm
Amen.
You put your finger on it. You put your finger (and pen) RIGHT FUCKING ON IT.
The question I’m asking myself lately is this: can a culture rise, stumble and rise again? Because we are stumbling badly. I feel as though I am living through that old story, The Emperor Has No Clothes. I keep thinking we are going over a cliff, a fucking cliff, in slow motion while people around me sip gallon size slurpies and watch tacky reality TV.
And as a biracial person with a very similar demographic to the president (white mother from Iowa, black father from Georgia and about to turn 50 myself) every time I watch the race baiting Obama absorbs it is an icy, goddamned slap in the face for me. I’m sick of it.
Thanks for the reminder to remain hopeful. I’m trying.
August 6th, 2011 at 11:59 pm
Tell it sister! I’m standing right beside you.
August 7th, 2011 at 2:45 am
I would have bought the woman her medicine. We can only do for others on the hope that they will pay it forward one day. I am so exhausted from all the hatred that I have lost the fight within me. I have become so disillusioned. I voted for Obama for all the right reasons but he needs to be tougher. No more centrist view. He has to show he doesn’t give a shit about togetherness and hoping others will come in line with his thinking. These times demand that he fights fire with fire. He needs to yell, scream and become the angry black man he never wanted to be. I am sad by my own words but I have had enough caving into the far right and the crazy people. Sanity needs to come back and nothing less should be tolerated.
August 7th, 2011 at 10:53 am
Amy this is brilliant and heartbreaking. Well said and well done!
August 7th, 2011 at 2:41 pm
Thank you. I was thinking along these lines yesterday myself. As a classroom teacher, I’m not sure how to go back into my school and deal with the same crap day after day…not from the students, but from the beaurocracy and politicians making decisions every day that effect the lives of my students, their families, and ultimately backlash down onto my job, my life, my children. Thank you.
August 7th, 2011 at 3:24 pm
Amy:
Marcia sent this to me. I had told her that yesterday I felt totally depressed and discouraged that no one is doing anything but complaining and accepting things the way they are.
Your piece is fantastic and made me cry. I’m with you 100 percent…
August 7th, 2011 at 4:31 pm
leslie: thank you! thank you! let’s start a ruckus!!!!!
love & more love!
August 7th, 2011 at 4:38 pm
hello!!!!!!!!
THANK YOU! thank you for your comment. i vote for hope! much love to you.
August 7th, 2011 at 4:39 pm
deb:
ahhh. you make me blush.
let’s move the universe.
no more hate.
so much love.
August 7th, 2011 at 4:41 pm
madge:
most folks can’t afford the $748.00 to buy her the medication. it’s unbelievable what’s happened & happening. we need to get out on the streets.
we need to start a revolution.
we need to say fuck you to everyone who is trying to take this country down.
I LOVE YOU MADGE.
YOU MAKE ME SWOON.
August 8th, 2011 at 10:15 am
I’m with you on the hope front Amy. No one can take that away from us. Unless we’re willing and able to start a full-blown revolution ala the recent revolutions in Egypt and other middle eastern countries, I don’t know that our taking to the streets will do much. Not since Vietnam has peaceful protest alone made an impact. Today’s protests are significantly diminished by corporate media. As for Obama, he is a great thinker, a true wordsmith, and the wrong person to run our country at this hour. Not because he’s black. Because he’s more Hoover than he is FDR in his political abilities, and this country needs another FDR right now. One thing we’ll always have as long as we have freedom of speech is words, and people like you to inspire the masses to be the change we want to see in the world.
August 8th, 2011 at 5:52 pm
you put words to my nightmares! I worry about our sacred president and his family when it is apparently acceptable to treat the president of the united states with such little respect. He is an admirable human being working mightily for a descent outcome.
Hope is the key and there is so much around us to destroy it. I feel so despondent at times, and I go to bed with a full stomach, the electric bill payed and a secure roof over my head. Compassion is the answer if hope is to be restored to the hopeless.
Brilliant piece once again Amy. Thanks for lifting our heads to the truth and to the light.
August 9th, 2011 at 7:23 am
Thank you, Amy. I love you.
August 9th, 2011 at 2:02 pm
Sadly everyone keeps dwelling on “the Black guy” in the White house rather the the RIGHT or the WRONG guy.. We needed change, we needed understanding, compassion and guidence. This mess we are in did not happen overnight and cannot change in the blink of an eye. It’s time for all of us to stand up and take back our country. Together we can make a difference.. United we stand…divided..it’s the same old same old!!
August 15th, 2011 at 6:50 pm
Awesome! Makes me think of a much better bumper sticker: “Well behaved women rarely make history.”
Let’s misbehave!