Half Full

by adminwp in Ruth Hackford-Peer | 0 comments

On Election Day, I watched the returns come in at a downtown hotel along with Equality Utah and the State Democratic Party with whom we shared space. 

Now, Democrats in the state of Utah typically don’t have too much to smile about, but as you can probably guess there were plenty of smiles that night.

For once, Democrats had won something, unlike during the last two national presidential election parties I attended: In 2004 when Amendment 3 passed in Utah and not a person—NOT A SINGLE PERSON—I voted for won; and 2000 when I stayed up until dawn to learn more than I could have ever imagined about hanging chad and recounts and Ohio and Florida. But this year’s party was different. I was brought to tears by Barack Obama’s acceptance speech, and even John McCain’s comments felt important. Historic. I watched as the first African-American became President of the United States and it felt good. Like the glass was not only half-full, but filling up even more.

Then I woke up.

To a TV commentator saying that we now live in a post-racial society where racism is not longer a factor in one’s success.

I’m afraid that many people share this attitude, and worse, that Obama’s success will be held up as proof that racism no longer exists. After all, it’s more exciting to talk about the first black president than it is to discuss the daily realities of racism, the legacy of anti-miscegenation laws, Jim Crow, Japanese-American internment camps, indeed slavery. All this, to say nothing of the achievement gap between white and minority students, and the connections between classism, racism, sexism and heterosexism.

I also woke up to discover that on the same day we elected the first African-American president, we sent Chris Buttars back to the state senate. Buttars, notorious for picking on gays and black (remember his “black baby” comment on a bill he didn’t like during this last session?). Buttars, who tried to sabotage the Salt Lake City Mutual Commitment Registry, and was ultimately responsible for the kooky name it has now. My friend thinks anybody who voted for Buttars should have to wear a pin that reads, “racist homophobe for Buttars.” I know, it’s a little too close to Hitler’s Germany, but I get her point.

I woke up to learn that anti-gay initiatives passed in California, Arizona, Florida and Arkansas. I think the most hateful of these is Arkansas’s, which banned gays from adopting children. Note to homophobes: Gay adoption bans do not stop us from having children. They just leave the children unprotected under the law and rip them away from parents. They do not allow well-meaning state institutions to look at what is in the best interest of the child. Oh, and they cost the state a lot of money—a lot of money.

Of course, the Arkansas (and Utah) adoption issues would be fixed if we allowed gay marriage. But marriage will be stripped away from same-sex couples in California.  

Conservative religious institutions—including the LDS church—were successful in getting their definition of morality enshrined in a civil institution. Is the United States of America on the way to being the Theocracy of Christian States? Are millions of Americans suffering from cognitive dissonance when they believe (or purport to believe) in liberty and justice for all, yet allow their churches—indeed their interpretation of their god—to restrict equal protection?

I woke up to my son Riley asking, “Now that Obama is President, does that mean the war will end tomorrow?”

I woke up.

But I woke up to thousands of my closest friends gathering peacefully at City Creek Park and walking in solidarity around Temple Square to protest the LDS church’s involvement in stripping away civil rights from a class of people. I woke up to chants of “separate church and state” and “What do we want? Equality! When do we want it? Now!” I woke up to my brothers and sisters across California doing the same. I woke up to activism and involvement and education.

And waking up felt different this time. Because when I woke up, I woke up to the reality of an African-American President. And I woke up to the memory of those two little girls watching their father claim the presidency.

Yes, the glass is not full. But it is half-full. And finally we are pouring liquid into that glass.