Why I Don’t Feel like Voting Anymore
America is just going to keep being America
It is the season of voting again. I know because you can smell the lies in the air. Something rotten has blossomed. It is the season of yard signs standing proudly on suburban lawns for the republican running for this, the democrat running for that. The third- or fifth-party guy who will have no chance because he has no money. It is the season of donkeys running from this and elephants running over that.
Vote, they say, or you will have no right to complain.
I have been complaining. I have been voting, for years. Neither has brought a better life. Neither the complaints, nor the votes have made this society less brutal. And I still must suffer the consequences of my skin whether I vote or not.
I won’t lie. I have felt good after having cast my vote. I walk back to my car, drunk with the delusion of hope. I drive back to my house in the inner-city neighborhood that I chose to live in because it means something to me.
I would like to believe that the children who attend the elementary school around the corner from my house would be precious to this country, as they are to me. I would like to think that the little black boys who go to that school won’t be pulled over for no reason and frisked for the first time…
