You Cannot Believe What You Cannot See-"Dream With Ambition"

 

"But while I may be the first woman in this office, I will not be the last because every little girl watching tonight sees that this is a county of possibilities."

Kamala Harris, Vice-President-Elect, November 7, 2020

How many times in the last 24 hours have we seen and heard little girls, ALL little girls, looking wide-eyed and smiling at images and footage of the soon to be Vice-President of the United States, Kamala Harris. How many little girls of color looked at their Mom and Dad with expressions of glee and exclaiming, “She looks like me!” The Vice-President elect has made history not only as the very first woman to be elected to higher office-about time wouldn’t you say!, but also the first woman of color and the first woman of South Asian descent -lots of glass shattered this week!

Kamala Devi Harris, a daughter of Indian and Jamaican immigrants has been elected to the second highest office in the land 100 years after the passage of the 19th amendment enfranchised women. Wearing. white, as she made her first public appearance as Vice-President elect, in honor of all who came before, the Kamala Harris spoke directly to every little girl and made it clear in NO way would she be the last to make history. It is also 55 years since the passage of the Voting Rights Act abolishing the disenfranchisement of Black Americans. 35 years ago Geraldine Ferraro was the first woman to run for Vice-President and she was asked repeatedly throughout that 1984 campaign if she was “tough enough” for the job. Whether with a stiletto or Jack Purcell All Star, Kamala Harris has kicked a door down, a very big door, and in so doing she has shown EVERY girl that Yes! This Girl Can!…and She Will! Congratulations Madame Vice-President-elect.

 

“And to the children of our country, regardless of your gender, our country has sent you a clear message: Dream with ambition, lead with conviction. And see yourselves in a way that others may not simply because they’ve never seen it before, but know that we will applaud you every step of the way.”

~Kamala Harris, Vice-President elect , November 7, 2020

Yes! It Matters-Go VOTE!

            “Someone struggled for your right to vote. Use it.”     ~Susan B. Anthony

Confession, I admit it-for the majority of  my voting life I did not vote.  I didn't believe I could make a difference.  I didn't think it mattered. I didn't believe in the process. I didn't like who was running.  I didn't think voting in my state changed anything...I didn't vote. I grew up in post-Watergate America and that framed my political socialization.  Then I grew up!  I realized what we all have to see, what my Father tried to tell me for years, if you don't participate don't complain!...and now I live in a country that frightens me more everyday.  So I can hide under the covers, or I can get up off the couch as Barack told us, and VOTE! 

Hope you do the same.

 “One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.” ~Plato

For Our Mother's Mothers and Our Daughter's Daughters...We Vote!

On September 11, 2001 amidst the horrors of that day a primary election was being held.  As most of us headed home, my then 93 year old Grandmother insisted on going out... to vote. "Why" I exclaimed, "it's a primary!" "It's very important", she declared, "especially today...now come pick me up."

I never thought much about voting.  Like most of us I didn't think my vote really mattered and I took for granted a privilege assuming it was a right and would always be there if and when there was a reason to vote.  I ignored history, Nana reminded me of just that.  Nana isn't here to vote this election, she would have been outraged by what has occurred.  She grew up in an immigrant family, with neighbors who burned crosses into the hills surrounding their home.  She lived through two world wars, the Depression, The McCarthy Era, the loss of the Kennedys and Martin Luther King, Vietnam, the Civil Rights Movement, Watergate...decades of extraordinary societal change and upheaval. She took it all in her stride but was always in awe of how far her Granddaughters could go.

 So many reasons to hate this election but perhaps  lost in all the insanity and vitriol of an election gone mad is one very important, and to say the least historic fact-there is a woman one election away from shattering the final ceiling.  This woman may have chosen a different path than your grandmother or your mother or even you.  No, she didn't stay home and bake cookies, but she respects your right to do that.  Instead she took her gifts and her education and went out and tried to create change that made a difference in people's lives. Is she perfect-no, none of us are,  and her journey to kick one door open after another for women and children meant that she had to make some people both unhappy and unsettled-quite brave!  

I grew up in the next generation-one that never questioned my right to be in the room, but I was the bookend to my grandmother-too smart for her generation, and my mother-a dutiful follower of hers.  I have spent my life following their lead while kicking my own doors open along the way.  Without them and everything they taught me, including how to bake cookies,  I would not be in that room.  Tomorrow we vote to be sure that not just every girl but every child can grow up knowing they too belong in the room!

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"When There Are No Ceilings..."

"The SKY's the Limit!"

Hillary Rodham Clinton July 28, 2016

For Those Who Came Before...

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It was we, the people; not we, the white male citizens; nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed the Union.... Men, their rights and nothing more; women, their rights and nothing less. ~Susan B. Anthony

Moving Beyond the Horror-Beyond the 11th

 

 “There’s a way in which each of us makes small choices every day. And after a period of time those choices develop into a pattern. Each moral and ethical choice forms our identity. It seems to me that the terrorists who flew planes into the buildings on September 11th, they started making choices a long time ago — choices took them so far off center that flying a plane into a building seemed like the right thing to do. It’s like any one of us. We choose our way into being ourselves. And I think that’s what Patti and Susan do in little choices and in big choices. When given a choice between violence and love — they chose love. When given a choice between retribution and restoration of harmony — they chose restoring harmony. When given a choice between death and life — they’ve chosen life. That’s just who they are. It’s who they’ve come to be. It’s who they’ve chosen to be. And because of that, their children are learning to choose life as well.”

—Jim Fleming, S.J., Patti Quigley’s brother, in Beyond Belief

I wrote this post several years back, but on this the 10th anniversary of a day that haunts us still, as it should, I believe more than ever that the only answer to be found in that day is to Move Beyond-to take the memories and create change, make a difference that resonates in lives and that has true meaning.  Hanging flags, building monuments, dedicating memorials are all important signs of remembrance but do they move us forward as a society, do they show the world we believe in hope?   

I think what I will always remember most viscerally about that morning is the sky. It was a September sky, that rare blue, clean and clear, that reflects the perfection of a late summer/early fall New England day. I wonder now how often I looked at the sky that day. How could a sky that glorious have held such horror?

On the morning of September 11, 2001 I was watering the late summer flowers willing them to keep summer going a few more weeks. I drove to my office with only a small news blip of a plane having flown into a building in New York. By 2:00 as I drove back home there were no planes flying in the sky. When the roar of a plane's engine streaked through the complete silence of that afternoon I pulled the car over with my heart pounding as I realized the aircraft I heard were fighter jets from one of the Massachusetts bases. Once again I looked to the sky.

Living in Boston we all had six degrees of connections to the thousands of tragic stories of that day. Some of those stories lived their lives less than a mile away. Susan Retik and Patti Quigley lost their husbands, David Retik and Patrick Quigley, on flights that left from Boston that day. Susan was pregnant with her third child and Patti was eight months pregnant with her second child. They became single Mothers, Widows, living within a drama that changed everything for all of us but for their lives most of all.

Patti and Susan watched as the country prepared to strike back somehow in some way and saw that the women of the country that housed and trained their husband's murderers had been left alone too. The stories of the women of Afghanistan moved these two American women to action, to turn an unspeakable, deeply personal, tragedy into a promise of hope. Susan and Patti soon learned about the vast number of widows in Afghanistan who had no support, financial or emotional, for themselves or their children. They felt a connection to these women whose lives were shattered by war and had nowhere to turn to rebuild their lives, none of the support that helped Patti and Susan get through. From that connection came Beyond the 11th "...to help provide financial and emotional help to these widows and their children and to give them hope for a better future." Please Visit Pearls of Grace

The Answers are Blowing in the Wind-In Appreciation, Mary Travers

“We’ve learned that it will take more than one generation to bring about change," Mary once said. “The fight for civil rights has developed into a broader concern for human rights, and that encompasses a great many people and countries. Those of us who live in a democracy have a responsibility to be the voice for those whose voices are stilled." Mary Travers

She was the emotional and physical center as she stood and sang from her soul between the "boys" Noel Paul Stokey and Peter Yarrow as the heart of Peter, Paul and Mary. Mary Travers' powerful and passionate presence with her blond swingy hair transcended the traditional folk music audience.

Peter, Paul and Mary made folk music accessible, they introduced Bob Dylan to a mainstream audience and believed that folk music could reach all people across race and economic lines. Their music was the background theme music for the extraordinary events and change this country went through in the 1960s and it was also an instrument of that change and a catalyst for a movement of peace and equality.

Unlike a lot of the "pop culture" of the decade,however, Peter Paul and Mary's music did not fade as the country changed and they "showed up" wherever there was injustice, whenever the country needed to hear their voices they were there-anti-nuclear, anti-apartheid, worker's rights...and at the center was Mary Travers. Her voice resonated through halls, and across parks and in auditoriums throughout the country-audiences came for the music and left believing the world could be a better place. To achieve that change Peter, Paul and Mary shared the music, believing the music should be passed on to generations as they did in Peter, Paul and Mommy
and my favorite Peter, Paul & Mommy, Too . I love the PBS specialPeter, Paul and Mommy, Too [90 Minute Concert] [VHS] and watching Mary sing from her very core to her grandchildren was a memorable three Kleenex moment that should be shared with all ages.

The trio sang together for nearly 50 years. They won five Grammy's,had 13 Top 40 hits including songs such as "Blowing' In The Wind," "If I Had A Hammer," "Leaving On A Jet Plane," "Where Have All The Flowers Gone," "500 Miles" and, of course, "Puff, The Magic Dragon." "If I Had a Hammer" became an anthem of the Civil Rights movement” as they sang at the 1963 March on Washington where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his legendary “I Have a Dream” speech.

Their roots were in folk music but it was Mary Travers presence that helped them reach beyond the coffee house tradition and reach top 40 status and who kept their music out in front as an instrument of change and the sound of political action for every decade since. Traditionalists criticized that perhaps they "sold out" but Mary Travers would argue that they were accessible and singing to so many more people- moving them to action with their voices and reaching more than one generation with their call for freedom and justice.

"I'm not sure I want to be singing 'Leaving on a Jet Plane' when I'm 75," she said in one interview. "But I know I'll still be singing 'Blowin' in the Wind.' "
Their work may be best known for the anthems they sang during the anti-war and civil rights movements but they continued to be out in front of the movements that were to change the direction of America, championing the rights of the disenfranchised and the legitimacy of those who fought for fairness. They proved time and again that music can change the world and Mary Travers voice peace and justice and a better planet will be missed.

"I have a sort of sampler in my head," Travers said, "that--paraphrasing the rabbinical scholar--says, 'It's not your duty to finish the task, it is your duty not to neglect it.' If war and hunger and racism were easy things to get rid of, I would assume we would have gotten rid of them already."

The Women who Applaud

The election of 2008 has been an amazing ride for those of us for whom watching politics is a sport. Now we are in the Playoffs! The balloons have dropped, the confetti swept up(do you think they recylced it?)and the pundits have gone back to their corners awaiting the first debate.

This election has been about many things, but for me the spotlight has been on the women of campaign 2008. Of course there are the candidates...Hillary made history and secured a position for not only her future ambitions, but also for any woman seeking to create change... and Sarah...well she is making waves. Her presence on the scene has ignited the McCain base but can she play in Portland, Poughkeepsie, or Peoria?? We will see, but we do know that Emily's List has to be in their glory this season. Women have arrived at The Party, they may have been at the party for many years but only to serve hors d'oeuvres, finally their voices are not only being heard but are moving voters- and not just the traditional women's block.

The women that really interested me through the conventions,however, are the women whose role it is to not run for any formal office but to ride the campaign trail and support "their guys". Nothing new there for the wife of a candidate, but the women at the side of these candidates are not sitting watching in quiet reverence. They are drawing crowds of their own,not staying on script,and making the case with an energy and emotional drive that doesn't necessarily fit who you might think they are. Given an election year that has never played by the rules why should we be surprised.

(Dolly Madison)

Please Visit Political Woman

Voting History, Voting Hope

"I am sick and tired of being sick and tired...Nobody's free until everybody's free..All of this is on account we want to register [sic], to become first-class citizens, and if the Freedom Democratic Party is not seated now, I question America. Is this America, the land of the free and the home of the brave where we have to sleep with our telephones off the hooks because our lives be threatened daily because we want to live as decent human beings - in America?"Fannie Lou Hamer,1964

Traditionally in contemporary American politics primary campaigns have been more of a yawn and less of an awakening. Who cared? Who actually went to the polls? Who watched debates? Network television barely covered nominating conventions. This time, this year, this election, has been to say the least a whole new ballgame in American political history. For a political junkie this has been the World Series, the Superbowl and the NBA finals rolled into one. For a woman who has never questioned that a woman's place was in fact in the House and in the Senate, this was a time that was long overdue. For a student of history, 44 years after Fannie Lou Hamer stood with her Freedom Democrats and challenged Mississippi's all white delegation to the Democratic convention, this was as if a very old window that had been nailed shut has fallen off its hinges and blown open by an insistent breeze.

Tonight after 16 months of a campaign that people actually cared about,actually showed up for, actually watched and participated in-after a campaign during which extraordinary numbers of people got involved and voted, many of whom had never been interested, involved or even voted before, Barack Obama, the junior senator from Illinois, achieved enough delegates to become the Democratic nominee for President of the United States. A new chapter begins-Please Visit Pearls of Grace and Political Woman