Tuesday, October 01, 2024

I'm Voting Hard For Harris-Walz And Langston Hughes

 


L
ast night Rick and I were trying to watch television, and we were unceasingly assailed by political ads for Ohio's US Senate race. Even on streaming channels (YouTubeTV and Hulu), we can't escape them. I detest the person running for the republicans. It's no secret that I love Sen. Sherrod Brown, who's just an all-around Good Guy. 

Anyway, every time the republican's ads come on, I mute them and get snarky and truthy with them. I used to have to prompt Rick to do the same, but now he does it on his own. That makes me feel good. Last night, we had this conversation after back-to-back-to-back political ads for the Senate race.

Scene opens in Rick and Nance's living room. Nance is on the couch, legs tucked under her. Rick is in the recliner, sitting like a normal human adult. She rolls her eyes and points the remote, exasperated.

Nance: (mutes TV) Rick! Tomorrow is already October 1st. Early in-person voting starts October 8th.

Rick: (turns to her, waiting) So you told me.

Nance:  I can't wait. I'm going to be there on the first day. I'm so ready. And I'm going to vote so hard. I mean it. I'm going to vote so hard. What about you?

Rick: (very serious) I don't think I can vote as hard as you, but I'm going to give it my best.

End Scene

(I may complain a lot about his snoring, his lack of fastidiousness, and his corny sense of humour, but the man gets me.)

In all seriousness, however, this election and what's at stake made me think of Langston Hughes. Cleveland loves to lay claim to this Harlem Renaissance poet, playwright, author, and activist. He wasn't born here, but after moving around awhile, he and his mother settled here, he went to school here, and he did publish his first poem while living in Cleveland. I love his work, and I taught a great deal of it. His poem "Let America Be America Again" makes me think about what is at stake in this critical election. Because it's really this simple, as I said over at maya's placeIn whose hands do you want to place the fate of those who need our help?

I hope you'll read this moving poem by Langston Hughes. And I hope you'll vote so hard to 

Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed—
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There’s never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this “homeland of the free.”)

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery’s scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek—
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one’s own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean—
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today—O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I’m the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That’s made America the land it has become.
O, I’m the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home—
For I’m the one who left dark Ireland’s shore,
And Poland’s plain, and England’s grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa’s strand I came
To build a “homeland of the free.”

The free?

Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we’ve dreamed
And all the songs we’ve sung
And all the hopes we’ve held
And all the flags we’ve hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay—
Except the dream that’s almost dead today.

O, let America be America again—
The land that never has been yet—
And yet must be—the land where every man is free.
The land that’s mine—the poor man’s, Indian’s, Negro’s, ME—
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose—
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people’s lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath—
America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain—
All, all the stretch of these great green states—
And make America again!


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37 comments:

  1. Oh believe me, Nance. I will be right there with you voting SO hard in this election. To be honest, I'm ready for this entire election season to be over; it's exhausting.

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    1. Gigi--I feel as if we are in an eternal Election Season. The discord sown by that individual and his extremist followers has held us hostage for almost a decade. It's like being an abuse victim. It's exhausting, it's stressful (if one is informed), and it's punitive.

      I'm glad you're voting So Hard with me. Voting early is a perk of retirement that I take advantage of with gratitude and glee. And I always thank the poll workers. They are heroes.

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  2. Your elections do go on for a long time, I am not surprised to read that Gigi is exhausted. We have had an election declared and all over and sorted during your process and that was exhausting enough. I cannot imagine it going on for as long as yours does! That poem, with more PC words that would be used today, could have been written for these times.

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    1. sustainablemum--It's ridiculous, isn't it? I think campaigning and electioneering should be limited strenuously. This is worse than baseball season!

      Poetry is wonderfully timeless, isn't it? Your point about language is well taken, but isn't it alarming that we seem not to have learned/progressed much in the 90 years since this poem was written? And it only took one person to legitimize the hate and send an entire country back wards.

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  3. Thank you for sharing that wonderful, terrible poem. I also will be voting as hard as I possibly can. I feel for you, living in a swing state. That must be EXHAUSTING. Democrats come to California for money, and Republicans pretty much leave us alone. At least on the national level. There are lots of down party races that are pretty close.

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    1. J--I wish Ohio were still a swing state. It's been reliably red for a while now, I'm sad to say. It's sickening. Our only saving grace is Sen. Sherrod Brown. Sadly, we brought you JD Vance and Jim Jordan, and while I voted SO HARD against them both, the corrupt nature of Ohio's gerrymandering and Supreme Court rendered me voiceless. Additionally, Ohio's Democratic Party isn't run by the best people--they haven't picked the strongest candidates/run the best campaigns.

      Langston Hughes's works are so good. He wrote about the Black experience in such an accessible, emotive way that it brings almost immediate understanding.

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  4. Incredibly beautiful poem. Just finished watching the Veep wannabees debate. Please vote hard, harder, hardest.

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    1. Mary--The poem is a treasure, a gift that continues to give more each time I read it.

      I watched it, too, and only became more firm in my resolve. I will armor up and vote with power!

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  5. What an honest and unrelenting poem! Yes, let's vote hard for Langston Hughes. "O, let America be America again—/The land that never has been yet—" WOW
    Arguably, no one believes harder in the American dream than immigrants do :). It made me so happy to hear that Pres. Carter celebrated his 100th birthday with a naturalization ceremony for 100 at the Carter Center...

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    1. And thanks for the shoutout, Nance!

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    2. maya--You're welcome!
      Langston Hughes gets better each time I read him. What an incredible mix of compassion and power there is in his writing. I wonder if he wept as he wrote.

      I think you may be right. So many immigrants come/came here to fulfill the dreams they had for sometimes simple things: safety, dignity, the chance to earn a living for themselves and their families. My father was first generation American. His dad worked at the steel mill that was practically in their back yard. Just about the whole south end of the city of Lorain, Ohio was immigrants at that time, working at the Ford plant, US Steel, AmShip, Lake Terminal RR, and Thew Shovel. Now, of course, Lorain is deindustrialized--part of the Rust Belt--and those jobs are gone.

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    3. Lorain is already special to me because of two other writers Toni Morrison and my colleague Sophfronia Scott and now you. <3

      It's a different automotive plant landscape (Flint, MI), but I really enjoyed Kelsey Ronan's _Chevy in the Hole_.

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    4. maya--I just familiarized myself with Ms. Scott, who I had not yet heard of. Thank you. Same with Kelsey Ronan. I think I mentioned poet and Lorainite Bruce Weigl before. He's another talented poet ( Pulitzer finalist) whose time in the Vietnam war influenced his writing, along with being born and raised in a steel town. I am beyond thankful to have been raised in a diverse, international city.

      And I'm glad to help burnish the image of my hometown in any way I can.

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  6. This will be the first year I vote early. Going to the polls on election day has always been a big deal for me. My father and grandmother were very involved in local Philly politics when I was young. We always hung out at the polling stations w/my dad; Mom brought hot chocolate in a giant thermos. So I made a production of it when my kids were young (vote, then to Dunkin Donuts!). This year I do not want to miss my vote being counted. Which is weird, b/c I've never had an issue getting to the polling station but this is not the year to have something happen. There is no way this race can be close. Just no way. Looking forward also to Sherrod (and Casey Weinstein) winning. Again, in what world do we as women in Ohio think Bernie Moreno is a good choice?

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    1. Elle--I love that Voting has always been a Special Event for your family, and that you've carried on that tradition. Voting IS special. And Important! I've never missed an election since I turned 18. I don't think anyone in my family has. We were raised on making our voices heard.

      I have zero idea how the presidential election can be close. OR how anyone has the guts to put a sign for the republican candidate in their yard. Honestly, I'm at a loss.

      And do NOT get me started on how any woman can vote for republicans who want to take away our rights. I have no tolerance for stupid women. Period. Or selfish women who say, "Abortion rights don't affect me; I'm over the age of 40." Have these idiots never heard of/read the poem "First They Came"?

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  7. I LOVE (love love love) that poem. It always makes me furious in the best way (the hopeful one), and that's why I too will vote hard at the first opportunity. I especially like to vote early because my polling place is a local church and the folks with the brochures outside are very republican. I don't really want to be rude to my neighbors, but I have a hard time being civil to them. Early voting is at the local rec center and has a much wider representation of all the sides. I am clinging to a hope that NC swings blue, but I don't know if the hurricane will affect that (or if it was possible even without that complication).

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    1. Bug--I vote early at the Board of Elections, and there's always a mob of both parties there, with the most strident being the republicans. I try to be a good example of a Kind, Woke, Liberal Democrat, so I merely say No Thank You with a smile to them and take any handout the Democrats offer me with an enthusiastic Yes, Please! One election, some republican made a nasty comment about an issue--completely untrue, of course--and I merely looked at her and said cheerfully, "Oh my, but you are misinformed. Please excuse me while I go in and vote intelligently," and sailed past her to a round of applause.

      I share your hope for North Carolina. They are burdened with so many troubles right now. It's just scary how that storm hit, and where. The losses are so profound.

      As far as the election in general, all I know is that the Democrats cannot sit this one out ANYWHERE. Senate races are vital in so many states. Every single vote matters. And check your registration online. Don't trust that just because you voted with no problems last time, it will be the same this time.

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    2. I've been kind of obsessively checking my registration - especially after hearing about a NC voter purge!

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    3. Bug--Good for you! Don't let them steal your vote.

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    4. Bug--I just found a terrific article regarding all the efforts being made to help voters in NC who have been affected by the storm. Here's what's being done.

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  8. I'm with you on the voting hard front. I'm doing it this weekend.

    Our country was built on the backs of immigrants. I can't believe We'd turn our backs on those in need now! Thanks for sharing the poem.

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    1. Jean--Hooray for early voting! Get in there and VOTE SO HARD THAT IT HURTS.

      What you say is so true--immigrants literally built much of the infrastructure of our country. Look at the railroads--Chinese, Italian, German, and Irish immigrants built the transcontinental railroad. At one point out west, 90% of the railroad labour workforce was Chinese immigrants. In the Midwest, African Americans supplied labour. And that's just one small example.

      I'm glad you liked the poem. It still rings true, and it's important as well as beautiful.

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  9. If there's anything I hate, it is political ads. I hate them all. Either side, makes no difference. They're silly. I enjoyed the visit to your living room. Ha. I'm ready for the election to be over. I'm still so confused how we got to this place. I will be voting too, not sure I will be voting hard. ;)

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    1. Ernie--I dislike being beaten into submission by them. I wrote about this topic at length many years ago here, advocating for political ads being limited to only a short time before the election. And we need to get big money out of our elections, too. If they were publicly funded, there'd be way fewer ads.

      I'm confused as to how the election is even close; how is the convicted felon rapist even a candidate? How is he Their Guy? And how can people justify voting for him?

      Come on, Ernie! Vote Hard against him.

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    2. I'm somewhat embarrassed to admit it, but I didn't realize until a few weeks after the two final candidates were selected that one of them was Trump. I was so confused. I don't follow politics very closely, so the primary was in the background for me and I was like WAIT, WHAT NOW?

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  10. Mr. O. and I will be at the polls on the first day of early voting in Texas (Oct. 21st.) We’ll be voting as hard as we can for Harris-Walz of course. And for Colin Allred to replace the repugnant slimebag Cancun Ted Cruz. I check our voter registration status online at least once a week —I’m that paranoid about the Republicans' dirty tricks to skew the vote.

    I’m hoping that my sister and brother-in-law will also be able to early vote, but they’re dealing with other major issues right now. They live in the hills of North Carolina, about 10 miles from Asheville. I was frantic when I saw news of the incredible destruction there. Yesterday I was finally able to get a text message through to my sister on her cell. They were without electricity, water, internet and cell service for 4 days and listening to news on a radio they had. Thankfully, they now have electricity, a (rather dodgy) water supply, and intermittent cell service via text. They were incredibly lucky not to have been washed away in a nearby mudslide and are doing what they can to help neighbors who were less fortunate. Not sure how they’re dealing with getting food and drinking water right now because the cell service has cut out again. *sigh* —My advice to climate deniers: Get real because this IS real and it will only get worse. Note to Donald the Dumpster Fire: F*ck off with your blatant lies and political propaganda. (Sorry for language.)

    Thank you for posting that beautiful poem by Langston Hughes. I remember my high school English teacher introducing him to our class: powerful poetry that speaks the raw truth with such poignancy. Incredible how this poem is so perfectly aligned with what is happening today. We are all so bone weary of the poisonous political climate perpetrated by the Rs. So it’s back to square one: vote, vote, vote hard everyone and let's hope we can overcome all the voter suppression tactics. Because most of us want Langston’s dream of the promise of America.

    XXOO

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    1. Ortizzle--You have SO MANY REASONS TO VOTE SO HARD!

      I'm so glad you were able to reach your family and know that they are okay. Poor Asheville and surrounding towns! I spent a bit of time in Chimney Rock and around the Biltmore years ago. What a mess it all is now. It's terrible and sad. I hope things improve rapidly for them. (And you can use Language on my blog anytime--anyone can.)

      I'm glad to reacquaint you with Langston Hughes. He is a poet for all times, I think. He reminds us of our conscience and our potential, two things that America must always remember and serve. And yes! we want Langston Hughes's "dream of the promise of America" to become reality. It's not an Impossibility. We can Vote For It.

      XXOO

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  11. I snort laughed at your conversation with your husband. I have every faith you will both vote super hard. I plan to do so as well.

    What a powerful poem. Thank you for sharing it.

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    1. Suzanne--I think he'll vote really, really hard, too. And I'm glad to hear that you will as well. We need everyone to do the same--Democrats everywhere, all up and down the ballot.

      I'm glad you appreciated the poem. Langston Hughes is a national treasure.

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  12. I think we should have the mantra to vote hard. Or at least vote prepared, right?!

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    1. NGS--Yes! Vote Hard And Vote Blue!

      You know, at this point, anyone who is undecided or ambivalent is simply Willfully Ignorant. I can stand a lot of things, but Stupidity is not one of them, especially from women. How any woman can justify voting republican (or third party) at this point is unfathomable to me.

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  13. I voted hard yesterday! I carefully colored in each rectangle (no checks or X's allowed and color inside the lines or it might not count, I was told!). I voted hard for Blue up and down the ballot! It felt great!
    Go, Harris/Walz! Go, Blue!

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    1. Ellen--YES! THAT'S WHAT WE WANT TO HEAR!
      VOTE HARD AND VOTE BLUE!
      Ellen, you are leading the way. 💙

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  14. When will it be over? Not soon enough. I'm laughing at yours and Ricks conversations. Oh, to have a peek into others family room conversations. 🤣

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    1. BB Suz--Election campaigns last far too long in the US. Big outside donor money has a lot to do with it, thanks to the Citizens United decision handed down by the Supreme Court.

      I'm sure you and your husband have a lot of conversations that are similarly entertaining. I think we should be in on some of them!

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  15. This current election cycle seems to have been going on since 2016 and I'm exhausted. Fed up with stupidity and learning that I know people in real life who buy into the Donald's bull shit. It's upsetting yet I persevere keeping my eye on Hughes's "O, let America be America again—" idea.

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    1. Ally--That's been the most disheartening and worst part, hasn't it? Discovering the people who not only countenance him, but embrace him and his sick behaviours and philosophy. It changes how I feel about so many people because it's a defining trait to me. It says, "I'm comfortable with misogyny, hate, othering, and immorality on a large scale. The ends always justify the means."

      I agree with you: this election cycle really has been going on since 2016, thanks to him. As I mentioned in another response above, it's like being a victim of ongoing abuse. And yes, it's up to us to persevere, and to use our vote, to realize Langston Hughes's dream for America.

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Oh, thank you for joining the fray!

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