My vote does not belong to me.
It's a fabric shaped and woven by many hands...
those of my grandmothers, who, after raising farm families in the depression, worked menial jobs late in life to qualify for Social Security, and those of my grandfathers who worked those farms...
I owe my vote to my uncles James, Robert, Leonard, George and Wayne who served our nation in WWII and after....from the infantry under Patton to work as a Marine medic in the Pacific...
and to my parents, farm kids with the courage to raise a family in a working class, multi-racial city neighborhood far from the small towns they grew up in...and who still, thirty years on, give whatever they can in time and effort to their community...
and my vote belongs to my neighborhood friends...Ray Ray and Quincy, James and Talaya, Eric and Tristan...who taught me so much about life...both its joys and about the pain of injustice that comes from prejudice...
my vote is not mine because it was shaped by my older cousins...Mark who came back from California, having worked with Caesar Chavez, and introduced me to the Catholic Worker movement...and Jim whose years in the Peace Corps in Africa connected me to a continent quite far from Minnesota where I'm from....
I owe my vote to Sister Kate, a radical nun, who snuck me and a dozen other students out of class to hear Coretta Scott King speak about non-violence...and to Coretta Walker, my classmate, who brought Mrs. King to tears when she walked up to her and said..."I was named after you."...
and to my immigrant friends, Tran and Minh and Yomi, who explained how different and valuable our freedoms in this country are and the profound priveledge we enjoy as Americans...
I owe my vote to mentors in New York City...whether from afar or up close...Michael Harrington, Dennis Rivera, Alan Nairn, Rev. Bill Starr...and innumerable others in the labor movement and the solidarity movement who taught with words and by example...
and to Sister Joan....who took me on as her helper...walking the rounds in Harlem at the height of the crack cocaine epidemic...and to the moms and kids we tried to help...
and my vote was forever shaped by Ellen...my conscience, a homeless woman...funny, unstable, but bitterly right about america and the best guide one could have ever asked to the life of the poor in New York City and those who fight for them...
my vote belongs to my neighbors here in Oakland...among them, Harry, who through the courage of his mother and the help of silent heroes, survived the Holocaust...and to Jack, 88 years old, a shipbuilder during the war at Pearl Harbor, and veteran of the indignities visited upon Chinese immigrants at Angel island....
My vote does not belong to me...
it is woven into the fabric of my family, my neighbors and my friends whose stories are much more complex and moving than I could convey here....
in this I am no different than you.
We may have different stories, but they are equally rich....
we may disagree about a few things...but the fabric of our votes will keep us together.
Friends, let's keep our eyes on the prize...
differ where we have to differ, but remember who and what we are fighting for.
peace. kid oakland.