I was lucky to be home in Minnesota this last weekend for the baptism of my two new nieces, and some GOTV...both went very well...
but there was a moment last night just before I caught the plane back here that I'd like to share with you...
It was something that hit me, after welcoming two new children into our family and having them baptised at my parent's Church...after calling and talking to hundreds of largely senior Minnesotans whose voices and accents and attitudes rolled like a five hour verson of "A Prairie Home Companion"....
Mrs. Brittweiler, Elmer Hendersen, Delores and Denny.....
what really hit me was Halloween on my old block....
My Mom and Dad are what people called in the old days "kindly neighbors"...its just a phrase whose meaning is pretty obviously clear. They go the extra mile. They buy extra bags of candy so they don't run out. They ask you inside to talk. They look you in the eye and greet you with a smile.
What that means on Halloween is that everyone comes to our house. Everyone gets their costume admired. Even the teenagers who really shouldn't be out there anymore....get a laugh and a handful of candy. It's like that.
And that's true, I'm sure, for most of Minnesota..
Except on my block, in my corner of St. Paul....it's always been multi-racial. We're right down from Central High..the big public school. We share the neighborhood between Black and White and Native American and Latino and Asian (including a large new arrival of Hmong families). And we have for as long as anyone can remember.
Anyhow, as I was handing out candy to wave after wave of children last night...all dolled up in their Halloween finest...children of so many different backgounds and traditions...I saw, truly, the new face of America...I saw Minnesota's future. And when combined with the powerful experience of witnessing the baptism of my nieces....I felt I was being hit with a major koan right there.
But I'd like to say to you today....we have yet to build a nation where every child has as equal a chance of being a doctor or a lawyer as they do of being Spider Man or the Tooth Fairy on Halloween.
We aren't there yet. Not in Minnesota, not in America.
You see, one of the parents we welcomed into our house was an African American dad, supervising a gaggle of kids. My parents were glad to see him and his children. His family had used to live just down the block.
But my folks were surprised. Because he and his wife had moved to the suburbs a year earlier.
They were back.
We were happy for that. He was happy to be back. But the truth is they had moved back to the neighborhood. They had sold their home in the suburbs. Because the very same Minnesota of "A Prairie Home Companion"...the children of Beverly and Elmer and Delores....did not welcome them.
Their children weren't treated with respect in the school system...their neighbors didn't extend a welcoming hand. It just didn't work out.
That's not right. That's not the America any of us want for our families and children.
And when George Bush and the GOP try to intimidate and challenge voters in heavily Democratic and African American precincts like my parents live in, don't you doubt for a second that they know exactly what they're doing. Because it's exactly the same mechanism that keeps some of our suburbs all white.. Our neighbor is not alone in his experience...not by a long shot...
you get intimidated and unwelcomed when you try to move out...you get intimidated and your vote gets challenged when you come back.
We have a long way to go in this country. And this election day, I'm not just fighting for my nieces and my nephew...
I'm fighting for all the Spider Mans and Tooth Fairies....every last one of them.