Political Reflections; Time, Territory and a Death Note

*This article was first published at www.cwabg.com on Jan. 10, 2017. Sharing here on this platform as the words are oddly, once again relevant post insurrection.

In the fall of 2008, as a burgeoning reporter with a few gigs under my belt, I took off from Yakima, Wash. and parachuted into Toledo, Ohio to work at The Blade as the paper’s education reporter. I landed there days after candidate turned President Barack Obama had sauntered past my would-be cubicle to sit in a conference room with The Blade’s publisher and editorial board. I would only learn of this after the fact, but that breakroom story immediately hammered the importance of this relatively new territory to me, in the grand scheme of presidential politics.

Weeks into the job, I volunteered to help out with weekend pool reporting. That is, where reporters jump into a pool together to see if the sharks are biting today. I joke, but not far from the truth. Toledo saw a lot of political activity that year, if you all recall the shiny-headed ‘Joe the Plumber,’ well he lived about a mile down the road from where I stayed while working at The Blade. So on the Sunday before election day the paper needed me to jump in the pool to cover the Sarah Palin machine of the day as her vice-presidential campaign gaggle made stops in Canton (a northeast Ohio town of about 73,000, known for being the home of the pro football hall of fame) and Columbus.

Before leaving the house that morning, I recall writing a note and placing it in my top drawer. The note, written on pages ripped from a spiral reporter’s notepad, carried a message that explained — in brief — that if anyone was reading it, I had been fully aware of the potential outcome of the day, that my demise was quite possible and in my mind anticipated given I was a black guy going to a Palin rally in 08. The note concluded with a simple declaration, that I was okay with my fate as part of the struggle should that be my end.

Off I went in to the heart of the red machine whose engine was revving with racist undertones and hatred. You see, this was the birth of the Tea Party and at the time we had no idea what this thing was to become, or how quickly it could get there. But my job was to be in the pool and pull nuggets from the scene to fold into the more seasoned reporters stories for well rounded coverage for our readers.

That day, the only other people of color in my sights at each of those rallies were members of the Secret Service detail, many with whom I made awkward eye contact a time or two, as we both had jobs to do and we knew the realities of the tension. However, much to my surprise, when Palin stood before the pool — she chose to not jump in that day — what I saw was a woman of stunning western beauty, sans the puffy hair that was a throwback to my birth decade. (Shout out to the Big Hair 80’s) She was pleasing to the eye and provided a sense of visual comfort in what was otherwise full immersion in a sea of discomfort for this budding reporter. But observe and report I did, as that was my task, my job.

That tingly feeling I got from her beauty was immediately squashed as soon as she opened her mouth with that squeaky voice and folksy talk. While the words departed little from the campaign rhetoric of the time, in hindsight, the death note may have been a bit over anticipation. To my delight, folks that I talked to that day were pleasant, respectful and answered my often barrage of questions spanning from their hopes for our country to the reason for attending the spectacle of a campaign rally.

The reality was that America, red-white America, wasn’t quite ready to return to be mainstream with their racism again quite yet; they were still incubating that part of their character. Again, this was Tea Party in its infancy and only subtle utterances of racism were emerging, not mass articulation and expression as we see today.

Those were the days where a bold neighbor or two would just hang an Obama scarecrow from a noose in a tree in their yard. They hadn’t quite advanced to the candidate him or herself inciting the crowd to harass and violently treat those who were deemed other.

Now, as we enter into a Trump presidency, we have mass articulation of racism, misogyny, sexual assault and a general indifference for protocol and political decorum. And when I leave my cave nestled in the relatively progressive enclave of Santa Barbara, I do not feel much more comfortable than I did the day I dove into the red-white American pool filled with baby sharks. Although my current environment may seem like a liberal bubble, as we grow into Trump’s America, I am quickly reminded that even in Santa Barbara (Pres. Fitz Grant from the fictional Scandal has a house here after all, or I think Mellie got that in the divorce), our daily newspaper (the words are printed on newsprint after all) was the first in the country to endorse Donald Trump for President. They had supported him in the primaries too. That means that there is support for that decision somewhere flowing within our enclave, or at least a willingness to turn a blind eye to such a rash decision.

This has been my reminder that these elements exist across America and have been seemingly emboldened by the election of their chief clown.

Many of days, particularly in the past year, I have shed the exterior bravado that I am conditioned to possess and I have wept for our country. Wept at the seemingly systematic and avoidable killings of unarmed and legally armed black and brown brothers and sisters. Wept at the actions of a one too many deranged gunmen and wept at the continual denial to do anything to address this plague to public health. I've wept at the painful wounds and division, largely based on race and class, that festers in society.

However, through it all, it remains my hope that love or at the very least sharing a space, eye contact or a conversation with someone who may not look like or think like you is the way moving forward, despite personal vulnerabilities. I remain hopeful that I will once again be surprised by the overwhelming good in people, because “hate is too great a burden to bear.”

... and video that I actually captured on my phone from the Canton portion of the day, or the belly of the beast: