Laurie sent her response to this election into "Women Against Sarah Palin" a blog started by two young women who wanted to give voice to the majority of women who find Palin's choice as a step backward in the feminist movement. In Laurie's post, she talked about not wanting to give into the negativity around the selection, not wanting to be a woman who was encouraged to slam another woman.
I read Gloria Steinem's piece in the LA Times and was reminded of how much I admire her even though there have been years of vilification.
My mother sent me pictures from Obama's campaign stop in Oregon in May. This is just one of those photographs, but each one shows thousands of people in support of Obama.
This morning I heard a black man on NPR say, "Every time a black man rises to a successful position, white people feel something is being torn away from them." (not verbatim) I found myself nodding in agreement.
All of this makes me feel more hopeful. I'm not sure why except that, as Deepak Chopra explains, this election is giving light to the shadows of the American psyche. While it is difficult to look into those shadows, it's important that we do so or they will have power over us. These shadows, if unexamined, will make us feel fearful and angry, depressed and powerless.
These are all the feelings I have been fighting of late, but this morning I woke up with a deeper sense that this time, the light will win out over the shadows and, as a nation, we can move forward, no longer living in inertia (Chopra's term for what McCain/Palin represent). It may not happen. I know this, but I also know that for every action there is a reaction and that one reaction leads to many more. The Republicans have reacted and in typical fashion, they are promoting the values of fear and false patriotism. They are calling upon hatred once again, twisting the discussion by giving a voice to a woman whose power comes not from women, but from men who feel assured that Palin represents their view of what a woman should be.
I think of Maragret Atwood's brilliant novel "The Handmaid's Tale." I think of George Orwell's "1984." I think of many novels and poems and songs and I call upon these voices to calm my fears.
And I think of Audre Lorde in her remarkable essay "The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action, Sister Outsider (excerpt)" calling us all to speak up, to realize that silence will not protect us, and I realize how important it is to listen not to the voices on the radio and television, not to the pundits and pollsters, but to those who have for so long decided to look into the shadows and face the fear.
They speak a truth I hope we, as a nation, can hear.
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