Last 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 place: In 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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