On Tuesday, my 8-month-old son Hugo and I drove voters to the polls in Chester, PA. Chester is a very economically depressed area just 10 miles from the affluent, educated college town where I grew up (Swarthmore, PA). Every person I met, every place we went, reminded me why it is so important that Barack Obama be our next president.
On Tuesday, my 8-month-old son Hugo and I drove voters to the polls in Chester, PA. Chester is a very economically depressed area just 10 miles from the affluent, educated college town where I grew up (Swarthmore, PA). Every person I met, every place we went, reminded me why it is so important that Barack Obama be our next president.
First, there was a big controversy on the local Obama listserve about whether it was safe to campaign in Chester. There is something wrong in our nation when we are afraid to help our neighbors. I was heartened to see that after people responded to the person who said it wasn't safe, this poster apologized and everyone discussed the very real crime issues in this area. I was pleased to find that in the Obama world, we could discuss these issues openly and we could all learn from each other.
We started our day at a labor union hall and met lots of great union members (Hugo was a big hit in his Obama Baby onesie). We drove a man and his wife home from voting. The man was an amputee and had neither a prosthetic leg nor a power wheelchair. It made me think about the disparities in medical care in this nation. I wondered if better access to health care could have saved his leg or provided him with a prosthetic or a power chair.
The next woman I drove lived in very old public housing development and most of the units were boarded up. We drove past some new and really nice housing and I commented on how nice it was. The woman told me that they had offered to move her there, but she was concerned about her safety with the drug dealing that goes on there. Why, I wondered, would we pay for these lovely new houses and then not properly patrol them to keep the residents safe?
I drove a lot of people to the polls from a senior building. I was very sad to not be able to drive two people who needed a handicapped-accessible van. It made me think about my grandmother's senior building (just 20 miles from this one), where on Election Day they have plenty of vans (including handicapped-accessible vans) to take all the residents to the polls.
I was having trouble finding one address, so I went to a house with lots of Obama signs to ask directions. It turned out that the person I was looking for had already voted. I asked the young man who gave me directions if he had voted. It turned out he had not and that he needed a ride, so we drove to his polling place. We passed Chester High School and he told me that he hated that school. He said he had moved here from Chichester (a working-class town just outside Chester City), and that at Chichester there was a pool and lots of sports to play. He said at Chester High there was only basketball and football and everyone wanted to play, so it was really hard to get on the team.
Each stop on our little journey through Chester showed us another problem in our nation. It was a stark reminder to me to see the lack of needed services for seniors, teens and all the citizens in this predominantly African-American, economically depressed city. Despite my knowledge of these problems, seeing them right in front of me was shocking.
I grew up in an adjoining town with some of the best public schools in America, excellent libraries, parks, and police and fire services. To think that two towns can be so close and yet so different reminded me how far we still need to go in this nation. It is because of these issues, and many more, that I am volunteering for Senator Barack Obama.
I asked that young man whom I drove what he liked about Barack Obama. He said that Barack reminded him of his father, who is a minister. I told him that that was one of the reasons that I liked Senator Obama too. He reminds me of my father.
I chose to run for the presidency at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together - unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction - towards a better future for our children and our grandchildren.
Barack Obama