baby killers & the 'n - lover'
It is terribly hot and muggy in Jacksonville & we have no shade but plenty of water as we stand on a busy street entrance into the stadium – folks from Georgia and Florida are playing football today and CodePink has a new megaphone to address the hundreds of thousands of cars rolling by! After our last experience with the scary violent republicans at the bush rally, we were all a little tentative but bravely strode forward to greet the fans w/ our great banners & signs: ”no stolen election”, “don’t allow bush to be re-selected”, “bush lies, fire him” and “vote Kerry”, etc.
We are all delighted to find at least half of the responses are from wildly enthusiastic Kerry supporters! And then there’s the republicans – but things are sure different when you’re the one holding the loud-speaker! We got to call them out by car or truck & shame all the violent, loud, limited white men (and some women) who flipped us off, called us names, and generally did their posturing thing for us. Not to mention how we got to actually talk with them, as they were stuck in traffic – even the ones that hastily rolled up their windows after screaming obscenities at us, had to hear our calm response, our informed retort to their ignorance.
We were called baby killers by women & men alike; we got to demand they be really pro-life and stop the killing in iraq. When we were called communists, dykes & freaks we got to call people on their bigotry, demand they cease name-calling, & ask them to embrace & value diversity and dialogue. Many white men and a few white women were totally stressed out by the amount of hair they could observe on places other then our heads! Who remembered armpit hair could be such a powerful thing! And if they dared try to shout ‘4 more years’ we got to say ‘of war, of lies, of poverty, of tax-cuts for the rich’. when they said ‘go bush’ we said, yeah go to texas bush or go to hell bush!
Then there were the even uglier white males who shouted ‘n…lover’ at us – not one, but two different white men at 2 different times. At the first, I actually did laugh, not at the typical absurdity and bigotry of these individuals, but at the amount of years it had been since anyone had called me that.
But the best surprise for all of us was the great amount of support we got, horns blaring, hands clapping, fists in the air w/triumphant shouts – everyone rolling by saying the same thing: Kerry by a landslide!!!! it was awesome!
after the traffic died down, we all headed to grab a bite to eat and then off to the door-to-door canvassing for move-on.pac
We are all delighted to find at least half of the responses are from wildly enthusiastic Kerry supporters! And then there’s the republicans – but things are sure different when you’re the one holding the loud-speaker! We got to call them out by car or truck & shame all the violent, loud, limited white men (and some women) who flipped us off, called us names, and generally did their posturing thing for us. Not to mention how we got to actually talk with them, as they were stuck in traffic – even the ones that hastily rolled up their windows after screaming obscenities at us, had to hear our calm response, our informed retort to their ignorance.
We were called baby killers by women & men alike; we got to demand they be really pro-life and stop the killing in iraq. When we were called communists, dykes & freaks we got to call people on their bigotry, demand they cease name-calling, & ask them to embrace & value diversity and dialogue. Many white men and a few white women were totally stressed out by the amount of hair they could observe on places other then our heads! Who remembered armpit hair could be such a powerful thing! And if they dared try to shout ‘4 more years’ we got to say ‘of war, of lies, of poverty, of tax-cuts for the rich’. when they said ‘go bush’ we said, yeah go to texas bush or go to hell bush!
Then there were the even uglier white males who shouted ‘n…lover’ at us – not one, but two different white men at 2 different times. At the first, I actually did laugh, not at the typical absurdity and bigotry of these individuals, but at the amount of years it had been since anyone had called me that.
But the best surprise for all of us was the great amount of support we got, horns blaring, hands clapping, fists in the air w/triumphant shouts – everyone rolling by saying the same thing: Kerry by a landslide!!!! it was awesome!
after the traffic died down, we all headed to grab a bite to eat and then off to the door-to-door canvassing for move-on.pac
posted by Xan @ 5:04 PM
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