Jump Jim Crow! (or) "The Morning after Super Tuesday"

Weel about and turn about and do jis so,

Eb'ry time I weel about and jump Jim Crow.

Super Tuesday has come and gone. I must admit that when I woke up this morning I felt somewhat empty, like the day after New Year's when you realize that you have to go back to work. The celebration is over - not politically speaking, of course. The race for votes and voters is still going strong. Perhaps you didn't make it to the polls this time (shame!), but fear not: you'll have two more opportunities to make your voice heard once you've registered. That said, maybe some one can help me better understand something.

I know that when elections take place, there is always a lot of hype and mudslinging as those running for office try to collect as many votes as possible. I know that this year's race is monumental and thrilling for many, myself included. What I don't understand is why I'm often being told WHAT and WHO to vote for. Maybe I'm just paying attention for the first time, but this really started to bother me. Thankfully, we're not currently in the antebellum South fighting against a nonsensical grandfather clause. I know how to read, and so do my friends and family members. While many of the students I work with are not necessarily skillful readers, they also are not totally ignorant and illiterate. In fact, I am a witness of their cognisance in the scope of their worlds. So why did so many people TELL me how to vote?

NAACP someone-or-another important approaches the church podium and says to the early morning congregation: I have a slogan for you all, repeat after me: "No on 92 and yes on the rest". EXCUSE ME? Sir, not only will I not repeat after you - I'm not a parrot - but I will not allow you to disrupt my Sunday morning! I am blessed to have a good mind, in proper working order; please engage me as though you recognize this. Now, you may think I'm going over the top. This is natural. It's what I do. However, I fear for our nation when we have promoters of various things getting crowds and masses to repeat after them, instead of inciting conversations, discussions, and thoughts.

It's one thing to have a stance; as an intrigued individual I may question your stance, at which point you should be able to (at least briefly) spout the reasons for your beliefs in whatever. But I take issue with those who try to get me to do something "just because". And this goes for any and everything. I read the little NAACP newspaper "Minority Report" a week before Mr. VIP-NAACP made his visit to the church. The paper was passed out at the last service. Do you know that piddly thing made absolutely no sense at all? Literally, it said something to the effect of "vote YES on 93 because it's going to be great for us and we look forward to supporting so-and-so and such-and-such". Okay....what?! You didn't tell me what Prop 93 IS, you didn't tell me what a yes or no vote means, and you didn't offer any additional information I may not have known! If this was my only ethnically-inclined source of voter guidance and information, I'd be up the River STYX without a paddle or a gold coin to pay my way!

Mr. VIP-NAACP also states that we should vote YES on Props 94-97 because we have close bonds and coalitions with the Indians in the mentioned tribes. Pardon me, but I neither know you or any members of the Pechanga, Morongo, Sycuan, or Agua Caliente tribes. Is my issue clear yet? We're not talking groups who have identified political similarities and have banded together, we're talking people telling you what to vote but without the why. The issues are not as black and white as they were for minorities back in the days of Jim Crow. Many people lead lives that never give a thought to government issues, except maybe when an election comes up; and sometimes not even then. But I'd like to think that in the days when my forefathers had to vote, and it was seriously life or death at stake, that they made sure they knew what they were risking their life for, and that the made sure they knew details to the best of their ability. So why come now, in 2008, talking as if the reasons don't matter?

What also scares me is the fact that I think that this is partially due to the fact that fewer people read nowadays, and those that do read less often than their counterparts of the late 1940s. The New Yorker ran an article about the decline in reading a few weeks ago, stating may be reserved in the distant future for an elevated and/or nostalgic classes. That seems a bit extreme, but it still haunted my thoughts for a while as I thought about how television has been watered down to the max and films are getting dumb and dumber. "Prom Night", "Cell Phones", what's next? "Just Die"?...wait...is that already a movie?

Well, I gotta wrap up. But think about it, are you being force-fed your conscience?

This Black History Month: FREE YOUR MIND.