The Audacity of Hop(ing you can finish your mac 'n cheese in peace).

Every Wednesday night, people from my office go out for Wednesday Night Dinner. This is primarily people not of my social group, but I know all of them through various projects at work or because they are friends with other people I know. I don't usually attend, because if I'm not working, I'm usually spending that night with friends, but tonight I decided I was being too antisocial of late and that I wasn't spending enough time with people to whom I feel indifferent. (Everyone I know falls into three distinct groups: People I Adore, People I Hate, and People To Whom I Feel Largely Indifferent. The People I Adore group is small, but I am fiercely loyal to them. The People I Hate group is even smaller than the first, and can actually be numbered on one hand. Not a primate hand, either. Maybe a Simpsons hand. The third group is vast and is comprised of 98% of people I meet.)

That turned out to be a bad idea.

Discussion turned, as it is wont to do in the climaxing weeks of the election, to politics. I don't mind a spirited, reasoned political debate with people of opposing views. Hell. I'm a Libertarian. EVERYONE has an opposing view to me. Even my own party doesn't agree with me half the time. (Libertarians have, instead of a party platform, a pack of those slimy frogs you could win as prizes at Showbiz Pizza when you were young. Each frog is a different stance on a political issue - we just throw them up on the wall of Federalism and see what sticks. This is, incidentally, why a Libertarian will never hold any office above school board president. [First action: disband school board.])

But what I got was less "reasoned debate" and more "eleven McCain supporters tell Erin, who mentions that she's supporting Obama in this election, everything that is wrong with the way she thinks/feels/lives her life." I'm not great at confrontation on the best of days - despite being pretty loud and obnoxiously opinionated, when people raise their voice to me, I immediately assume the beaten puppy look: head down, tail tucked and eyes darting around trying to find a safe exit. But it is worse when the things people are saying are so ridiculous as to inspire baffled laughter rather than a courteous, yet direct response. Here are some "facts" I was taught tonight:

1) Obama is a Muslim extremist who will blow us all up. (really, that one's been going around for years. New material, people, come on!)

2) Obama is not a citizen of the United States and is ineligible to run for President.

3) Obama has not served this country. (Apparently, to serve this country, one's only option is to enlist in the military. Nothing else - being an upstanding citizen, protecting other citizen's rights, or just being a really helpful person willing to lend a hand to one's neighbors and/or bake cupcakes - qualifies. By the way, this fact was told to me by someone who's never served in the military.)

4) Obama is part of organized crime.

5) I will lose my job if I vote for Obama.

6) I will have to take three jobs to support my kids if I vote for Obama. (No one had a good reply to my pointing out that, in McCain/Palin's dream world, I would have about 7 kids to support because I wouldn't be able to control what happens to my own body.)

7) Obama is racist against white people. (well, who wouldn't be, with such fine examples as this?), and

8) Black people are lazy.

If you're wondering, "black people are lazy" is about where I just stopped trying to talk and stood there, mouth open. The thing is, I'm no stranger to racism. You can't have the legacy of Mississippi stretching like a shadow behind you and be shocked by racist behavior. I witness it every day. I think what shocked me was more that the natural progression in any person's brain when debating politics would be "I don't like this political candidate. And also black people are lazy." I make the argument a lot that the kind of racism that's destroying our country is the kind you can't point out as being textbook racist - the things people think or say and then pat themselves on the back in self-congratulation for being so forward-thinking and "with the times" - but I don't know, there may be something to be said for blatant, old fashioned, in-your-face-all-that's-missing-is-the-white-hood, Jim Crow racism. It's as nostalgic as malteds and long-playing LPs!

The problem, of course, is that you can't argue with "black people are lazy." To argue against a point, there has to be a point - "black people are lazy" is just a ridiculous non-sequitor wholly unsupported by facts, anecdotes or good manners. It's the racist equivalent to the ex-boyfriend who doesn't quite understand why you won't return his many phone calls. You can't call him to say, "please stop calling me;" that's it; you've lost. All he wants is for you to validate his behavior with a response; once you've done that, he wins. So, instead, there was the aforementioned mouth-gaping, followed by a head cocked to one side and a befuddled "okaaaaay."

I realize that my shock in the way this evening played out smacks of naivete, and I assure you that I'm not Pollyanna-ing my way through life. I know that people feel this way. I even knew, at some level, perhaps, that these people feel this way. It is not as if we sit around discussing the latest and greatest from the ACLU; I know these people are mostly NeoCons. I think what continues to surprise and confuse me is that these people - the people who genuinely believe that Obama is the Muslim Antichrist Terrorist sent from Hell to blow us all to bits - even the person who dropped "black people are lazy" on me - these people like me. They think I'm charming and vivacious and adorable and spunky . . . but they hate everything I believe in (and, to be fair, I hate everything they believe in). Does personality transcend belief? I've always thought it did not; that we are, in summation, merely a reflection of our passions and beliefs. That who we are is intrinsically tied to what we want and how we feel. I'll never be accused of being the most open and honest person with the public - what I present to the public is rarely an indication of my actual self - but even my public persona isn't the type for which anyone would reasonably think that "black people are lazy" is a good argument point. So, do they like me in spite of my beliefs? Or are they so entrenched in their own beliefs that they can't recognize that I could possibly hold a different view?

This blog has gone way off-topic, so I'll bring it back around with this question: There are just a few more weeks until the U.S. Presidental election, and the nation is at a fever pitch. What is your favorite part of election fever? What do you really hate? And how many people have you pissed off this week discussing politics?

In summation, I offer you this political sign, which apparently HR will not let me put up in my office, and to whose creation I committed at least five minutes in MS Paint:



It's funny if you're me.

Party Line

I was all set yesterday to write this ginourmous (TM my younger cousin Alex) blog entry about all my doings and going-ons in February, complete with photographic evidence of same, but I was rudely interrupted by the onset of a vicious migraine. Thing I don't love? Feeling like someone's jamming an ice pick into my skull, all alien bounty hunter-ish. But at any rate, that entry will come later today. But for now I thought I'd write about The Political Process As Observed by Yours, Truly.

That's right. Today's March 4, also known as Primary Day here in Texas (and Ohio, Vermont and Rhode Island, but who cares about those states? Vermont sits up there, all high and mighty with its gorgeous foliage and seasons, Ohio's just lame, and you can fit about 1200000 Rhode Islands in the city of Houston alone. I have one Rhode Island in my back yard, as a matter of fact.). And would you believe, despite being nearly 28 years old and fairly politically active for most of my life, I'd never before voted in a primary until today? It's true! It's not due to apathy or a Lenten promise to give up electronic voting booths; it's just that I'm a member of a third party and, generally, our inter-party races are usually settled by a thumb war or something. Sometimes it's a race to see which broken-down old van can get to DC first. Exciting, yes, but maybe not something that captures a nation's interest.

But this year, for reasons which will remain my own but which probably stem from being too old to get much het up about ideals anymore, I've decided to join the crowd and vote big ticket. And it's really exciting, too! Texas generally gets sort of overlooked by presidential candidates - the Republicans figure they'll carry Texas whether they come down here and campaign or not, and the Democrats figure the state will still go Republican, no matter how many times they come down here and sample our BBQ. And I guess BBQ and Shiner Boch isn't much of an inducement to presidential candidates (although it should be, obviously), because for the most part, we sort of get shafted.

But not this year! With the Democratic primary race still very much anyone's game (as long as that anyone is Clinton or Obama), all eyes are on Texas and our wacky Democratic primary process. McCain will take it for the Republicans - is Huckabee still alive, even? - but it's still neck and neck for the Dems. If Clinton manages to take Ohio (which she's favored to) AND Texas, she's back in the game and will have a slight lead over Obama. If she loses them both, she's probably out, and if they split down the middle, then this primary race will drag on until the summer. And as much as I like both Obama and Clinton (I do, actually, for varying reasons both politically and personally), and enjoy the drama of it all, I need it to be over already. I compared it to the World Series earlier today - McCain is the Yankees, a bit bloated and still riding on the buzz of yesteryear's heydey, and he's already won the ALCS in four games. He's kicking back and watching game tape while Clinton (the Mets, obvs: less accessible perhaps than other teams but her fans are hardcore) and Obama (please, he's totally the Cubs. Fan-and-celeb-favorite, getting everyone's hopes up only to dash them at the last possible moment when the foul ball bounces off a fan's glove) are still duking it out in the National League, wearing each other and everyone else out. By the time one of them manages to win 4 games out of 7, McCain will know exactly how to hit them in the pennant race.

CNN has a totally handy (and fun!) map which shows how many delegates each candidate has. You can make your predictions for the remainder of the primaries (all eyes on Guam!) and see how many more votes Obama and Clinton need to win the nomination. There should really be a pool for these sorts of things. If my Oscar picks were anything to go by, I'd rake in tons of dough.

Regardless of which unlikely presidential candidate wins the Democratic nomination, I've done my part. Well, one-half of my part. The craziness of the Texas Two-Step means that I get to go back to my polling place tonight and caucas. I've never caucased before, but it sounds really fun and important, like maybe I should wear an Amanda Woodward power suit and type on my Blackberry a lot. Even crazier, because the Texas Democratic Party consists of precisely five people and one large, ungainly dog, they don't have precinct chairs for every polling place. And the only qualifications for being a precinct chair are A) having voted earlier in the regular primary and B) being alive, so basically anyone who is alive and has voted is eligible. That means that, theoretically, if my polling place doesn't have an official precinct chair, I could do it. I think all you have to do is pass out papers and be a glorified cheerleader ("2!4!6!8! Who do we appreciate? Clinton! Clinton! Goooo Clinton!" or "Obama Obama, he's our man! If he can't win the Democratic Party nomination and then go on to beat McCain's weird, gelatinous face into the ground, no one can!" You can use those cheers if you want. You don't even need to credit me.). Still, though, Democratic Precinct Caucas Chair sounds pretty freaking important. It's too bad that teenagers can't vote; that sort of thing would look really good on a college application.

xx erin