2 things and a reality check

3 things have happened to me the past 2 days that have gotten me very e-motional

1. Last night i stayed up late to watch the obama special online. And regardless of politics and waht he said and crap, that was a great special. I felt so in touch with American, Americans, etc etc. The special showed the interconnectedness not the division. It showed that we are hard workers striving to help each other and our families even in the hardest of times. And it made me, for the first timein a long time, really proud to be an American. I mean i have been volunteering and i talk about the elction all the time and blah blha but it made me remember how important all this really is. It's not about who has teh better tax plan or who is or isn't muslim. It's about getting back to the America that my parents told me about, the America that they gave up everything to come to. They didn't leave their homes to be someone's maid or gardener. So that they could deign to exist as second class citizens to the "real americans." they came here because this was the land of opportunity, where anyone, regardless of where they came from could make it. Where the daughter of a lunch trucker could go to Stanford. THIS was the America i was told about. But for so long this has not been the America i have seen. There is so much anger and divisiveness coming out right now, revealing all of these festered wounds. so when did we stop believing in america?? When did injustice and not striving for ideal equality become acceptable in our eyes?? This is not the America of my father's dreams. this is not the America that he abandoned everything for. So as many writers have written, if what we have lived in for most of my life has been "real america," then i'm ready to give it all up and try something new to try to strive for the America that i have read about. Because this isn't it.

2. And then i read this which really moved me. I started thinking about what it would really mean to have a black first lady and all that goes along with that and if it actually happens i think i will cry. Not that it will mean all the bullshit of this country is over, but that it will mean the american dream can still live on. And i have lots of mixed feelings about the American Dream, but i also feel that when the idea of the dream dies then we are no longer America. I have this memory that has been coming back to me lately of a girl i went to middle school with. Her name was dominique and since we went to a christian school which doesn't promote halloween (aka devil day) they told us we could dress us as our heroes. It was a lame idea. I came as dorothy from the wizard of oz because that was my costume from halloween and my mom had spent hours putting sparkles on my ruby red slippers, so she would be damned if i didn't wear that thing as many times as possible. But Dominique showed up wearing a skirt, white button down, blazer, and tie. I went up to her adn i said "what are you?" And she said, "i'm my future hero, the first woman president." clearly her mother had inculcated her with this costume idea because her mom was a pretty liberal lady. but what is sadder is my reaction. I may have actually said, but definitely thought, "women can't be president. That's just stupid." When i think back on this, no amount of coaxing could have changed my mind, because reality is and was reality. So when i think about the power behind this election, and what it can do for the future, i am so very moved. If someday a kid can show up dressed in a suit and say "i'm barack obama, the first black president" than maybe a girl dressed up as her future hero, the first female president won't seem so stupid and unrealistic. i want to be able to tell my kids that they can do anything or be anything, but more importantly i want to be able to mean it.


now here's the reality check
3. Today one of my students, this white working class girl, came up to me. I felt so terrible. Her parents died and she's been raising herself and taking care of her grandma since she was 12, living on welfare and foodstamps. Now she's here in college, among all these rich as fuck ungrateful brats and she's too scared to take on loans because she doesnt' understand teh banking system, so she has all these jobs in addition to her financial aid. She went to the health clinic and due to various symptoms they think she might have a pituitary tumor. Here's the terrible part. She has no insurance, and they don't require you to have insurance to register here. She needs an MRI to see if it is in fact a tumor but those cost over $2,000. She's too scared to take a loan and medicaide isn't going through for her and she's trying to find a way to get that money while still maintaining a class load of 5 courses, AND dealing with the fear that she might have cancer, which her mom died of. Oh and this possible tumor is affecting her vision and giving her terrible headaches. She confessed to me, fighting off tears that her worst fear is that she will have to depend on others to take care of her, like her mom depended on her when she had cancer. And i think she's scared of depeneding on people, because she knows that there is no one to depend on. THAT is some upsetting real shit. I don't know what to do about this