My birthday was yesterday. Dr. King and I don't share a birthday. He was born on January 15. I was born on the 20th. But, the observance of his birthday is always near my birthday. Growing up, I felt proud that I shared a birthday weekend with Dr. King. As the lone child of color in my white working class public schools being harassed throughout school, the idea that I had a remote connection to the Reverend contributed to what I needed to survive.
As I got older, nourished by political conversations at the family dinner table every night, I started putting things together to see that political participation was an important venue for survival. When I was still 17, I registered to vote because I would turn 18 by November. So yes, I've always been politically engaged. However, I never cared much about the Presidential elections, because I was either disgusted by the candidates (e.g. Bush) or just ambivalent (Clinton, Gore, Kerry). Nothing they talked about really got me excited or engaged.
Why Barack Obama? Because 'change doesn't come from the top down, but from the grassroots,' and Obama's campaign is all about the grassroots. So, I went to Nevada for Obama this past weekend, to canvas and make phone calls, and to observe the caucuses.
I drove with my friends to Las Vegas Thursday night. We got to the hotel at 1 a.m. We got up in the morning and headed out at 8:30 a.m. We met some amazing people from the Bay area, Iowa, Arizona, New Hampshire, New York... everywhere! B, T, and I went out and hung door hangers to remind people to go caucus the next day. We canvassed Chinatown for Obama that evening. Then we made phone calls to remind people about the caucuses the next day. We woke up at 5 a.m. on Saturday to do some more door hanging. And afterwards, we got our assignments for caucus location.
Clark High School in Las Vegas.
We had 9 precincts in the high school - 4 in the cafeteria, 3 in the gym, and 2 in the library. The training we got the night before on what to expect was wishful thinking. The state Democratic party should have had a map of the location for where each precinct should be in the high school. They shoudl have provided a list of addresses and precinct assignments for each voter. They had NONE of that. And Hillary (HRC) had a campaign machine that quickly took over the operations of the caucus.
Overall, I think caucuses are the most disempowering and disenfranchising things EVER! But more disheartening is what I saw done by HRC campaign volunteers. First, there were 2 precincts that didn't have captains for Obama, so we were to drop off stickers and posters and water for those precincts. Precinct 6501 was monopolized by a mean old lady who was an HRC captain. When I dropped off the box, she yelled and screamed at me about how I couldn't be in the room and that the stickers and posters could not be there, even though she had HRC materials on her table. She threatened to call the police, which I told her she could, because I knew I was within my rights. I reminded her that each candidate is allowed 2 silent observers during the caucus, but she ran me out of the room and tried to run me out of the building. She was out of control!
I then met a Spanish speaking woman who told me that HRC people had told 3 of her friends (Obama supporters) to give them their ballot cards and to go home, because "it was all done." Complete illegal voter suppression!!! I assured the woman that she needed to stay, and encouraged to call her friends back. Too late. Her friends felt intimidated.
One of our precinct captains was shoved by an HRC precinct captain so he left the building entirely. Assault!? Ridiculous.
To try to convince Obama people to go to HRC, a middle aged white woman told a group of Obama supporters "the Clintons are good for Black people." Jason, a very vocal Black man countered that the Black population in prison doubled under Clinton due to mandatory sentencing [i don't know if the numbers are accurate]. Her response, "well if you people didn't do anything wrong, you shouldn't worry about going to jail. Mandatory sentences are mandatory to be fair and equal." Wow, I'm glad that exchange didn't escalate. Another HRC white man told another Obama crowd, "Obama's not viable in the general election because his middle name is Hussein." My friend told me an Edwards person said that she didn't want a Muslim (Obama is NOT Muslim, but even if he was, so what) in the White House especially if another 9/11 happened. Yikes!
When our group from California reconvened we shared stories like this with each other. My observations were not isolated. I heard stories of people getting paid to vote for HRC. When we met up with HRC supporters from California, I heard one bad story about an Obama supporter tearing up an HRC poster. But even HRC people noted the messed up behavior of HRC supporters. One woman said that at her precinct the Spanish speaking HRC captain welcomed the whole group saying in Spanish that "we are all here to caucus for HRC". And the California HRC volunteer had to correct her 10 times.
I came away feeling disgusted and feeling a great urgency that people who support Obama need to step it up. When Senator Obama talks about change, he is, I believe, including changing the dirty Democratic party machine establishment that has thrown their support in for HRC. When HRC says she's more experienced, I'll agree that her campaign is more experienced in dirty tricks to disenfranchise and manipulate people for their candidate. All the Obama supporters and volunteers I met are candidate-campaign newbies. We don't know these tricks, and honestly I would not want to engage in such dirty tactics. It's counter-productive. Why would you want to suppress the participation of your fellow party members?
HRC supporters I saw in Nevada are afraid of change, because it means that their power is destabilized in the party. They were mostly "aunties and divas" in the AAPI community. Generally they are older and whiter. Obama supporters are more racially diverse, and yes we are younger. And even if we're over 40, we tend to be new to party politics. The number of new party participants mobilized by Obama threatens party old skoolers. Because they're old skoolers and we're newcomers they feel emboldened to call the police on me even if I'm perfectly in my rights. And us newcomers... we aren't prepared for such nastiness. And I like to think that we don't want to engage in such things.
I used to have respect for HRC. I know that HRC did not sanction such nasty voter suppression. But if every precinct my friends were at had HRC supporters doing such underhanded things, I have to think that HRC's operation is systemically to blame. I don't want a president who is willing to step on fellow Americans to get the job done.
Change has to happen, and it has to happen from the grassroots! Please get out there and spread the word about Obama and voting on February 5!!!
Pictures from the trip are provided by our photo-journalist extraordinaire, Bessie.
