Audacity and Hope: Esperenza Tragica ; Election Day 9:17 A.M. Tragic hope. Tragic hope is a pillar of the political orientation of one of my favourite dramatists, Antonio Buero Vallejo. My apprehension of its premiss is that hurting is a necessary measure toward peace and the ultimate realisation of a dream, felicity. I still have it. I can maintain it excessively, for the staying hours of the twenty-four hours.
I load my kids into the auto on Election Day forenoon. Recently, I have successfully fought my enticement to turn on NPR until after they board their school coach. I realize that, in an effort to maintain up with the run and the day-to-day horrific casualties of the war, I had been tuning in to NPR from 6:15 AM and tuning them out at the breakfast tabular array, usually an of import portion of our twenty-four hours, and a tradition I ‘ve kept since my shortly to be 19- twelvemonth old was in her early old ages of grade school, as they are now. But today, Election Day, I succumb to my enticement and instantly turn on NPR as we drive to their forenoon chorus pattern at school. I wear my Obama pin, with the word “ HOPE ” on the underside. I wonder if the “ Tragic ” portion of the HOPE has already been fulfilled in the old coevalss ‘ painful letdowns, unfairnesss and force launched at minorities.
I look in the rearview mirror to do certain that my 8- twelvemonth -old girl Mariama and my 6- year- old boy Amadou are have oning their seat belts. They have been excited about this twenty-four hours. They assume that the campaigner Mama chose is the good cat and he ‘ll win. They wear their pins “ Barrack to the Future ” and “ Super Obama ” severally. They seem incognizant, so far, of their differences from the “ mainstream ” , or of their similarities to our campaigner. Like Obama, they are brown. Like Obama, they have an African male parent whom they have n’t seen since his return to Africa when they were babes. And, like Obama, their male parent is Muslim. They, like Obama, have a white, American female parent who believes that the key to recognizing one ‘s dreams is an instruction. Like Obama, largely she and their white relations have raised them. Today they assume all is traveling to travel good.
“ So Mama, I ‘m now on book two of the Lemony Snicket series ” , Mariama reports. “ The author says in the beginning: ‘ This book is n’t traveling to hold a happy stoping, but nil is forestalling you from seting the book down and reading another 1 with a happy stoping ‘ . ” “ At the terminal it started to hold a happy stoping but it turned into a atrocious stoping and the author said: ‘ See I warned you in the beginning that there was n’t traveling to be a happy stoping and told you to travel happen another book! ‘ “ . She seems diverted and intrigued by the witty challenges the author directs her manner. I block out the remainder of Mariama ‘s drumhead. I do experience guilty about it, trusting that she wo n’t detect my absent regard and periodic nods. I tune in alternatively to the familiar voice of Karen Fagans from our local public wireless station and the dismaying study that a recent metropolis council ballot rejected a request to alter the name of Nathan B. Forrest High School. The local study cited an “ overpowering ballot ” to maintain the name, honouring the Confederate general and most notably one of the establishing members of the Ku Klux Klan. I ‘m wholly floored. I had assumed without inquiry that no believing individual could perchance happen a defence for maintaining the name, an award and testimonial to an person who represents unbelievable hatred and horror to so many of our citizens.
It ‘s been a small over 15 months now since my fellow ‘s household in Madrid questioned me publically about my pick for a political campaigner. I had abandoned hope for my state ‘s possibility of recovery from the unfairnesss of the 2000 “ election ” , the war and even more dismaying, re-election of 2004. I sat at the caput of the eating house tabular array, under the size uping regard of two coevalss of Spaniards, a little more than three decennaries removed from the decease of a fascist dictator who ruled Spain for about 40 old ages. I responded that I did n’t hold a campaigner ; I had given up hope. I watched the letdown on their faces. I planned non to take part, I explained in my square, faltering effort at talking Spanish.
At that clip there was force per unit area to back up Clinton. I believed that until we have a true multi- party system that we could n’t hold a existent democracy. The either – or thing was n’t cutting it any longer. In late autumn of 2007 an NPR interview with a waitress who had been hoisted up into the limelight by the Clinton run as a posting kid of the sort of individual that she was contending for, when pressed for indorsement, reluctantly responded that she had given up hope. She did n’t believe Clinton represented her. Yes, she was a college alumnus and individual female parent who had to work two waitress occupations to feed her three male childs. But, when her foreman announced the Clinton cantonment ‘s repast was on the house, they paraded out of the eating house neglecting to go forth a tip for their posting kid. The message was loud and clear. Clinton did n’t truly acquire it. As Obama began to emerge, a strong competitory campaigner, I was unconsciously revitalized in my hope. The energy, truth, and personal appeal was all backed up by a adult male of rule, a adult male that had the backbones to do a really unpopular stance against the war. I changed class. I noticed though that there was reluctance from my African – American friends to smile, to shout, and to be vocal. I could n’t understand it. There was vacillation, composed discretion.
As my eyes make contact with African American parents and instructors at my kids ‘s school. I see the same distance. I feel the vacillation, separation. The early forenoon study of Nathan B. Forrest High School and the “ overpowering ” ballot to maintain its name rings in my ears. I look down and avert my eyes, ashamed at my brave serendipitous ignorance. I begin to understand. By tomorrow forenoon we ‘ll cognize. But either manner there is the cognition that the vacillation to observe merely yet is justified. There may be more tragica in our esperenza, more hurting to go on hope. But a president Obama will relieve some of that hurting and promote motion frontward. My eyes burn as I contemplate my girl ‘s Lemony Snicket quotation mark: “ I warned you that there was n’t traveling to be a happy stoping, nil was halting you from seting down this book and happening another 1. ” I swallow a immense ball in my pharynx ; draw up in my private road, staying in my auto to listen to the Nathan B. Forrest High School study once more.
