I'm not going to worry about it anymore
I wish... really, sometimes it kills to care so much.
Yesterday, I was beckoned to a friend's place to watch the results come in. This was a big mistake for several reasons. First, my friend herself is so liberal and left-leaning that she couldn't even acknowledge the fact that things were not turning out the way the original exit polls had predicted. Secondly, she seemed so wound up about the results that she felt the need to incessantly switch channels, which is something I can't tolerate for very long. Thirdly, she invited another friend, who kept talking about how he was interested in the cultural divide in America and how he wants to be a catalyst for opening up the dialogue between the two sides of America. It's that last reason that was the deal breaker for me. Because, who does he think he is? And also, what dream world does he live in? I have to admit that, although I love my current residence in the liberal mecca of the country, it is filled with a lot of people who are out of touch with reality. Last night was no time for listening to that kind of thing, frankly.
So I went home, and tried to listen to Barack Obama's speech, since, in my mind, he is the one shining hope that came out of last night's outcomes. My friend wouldn't let me watch his acceptance speech, because, as she put it, "I don't care about the stupid Senate." See, I'm trying not to hate on my fellow Dem's, but they're making it really hard for me. Obama is some good news, and I know that good news may take years to really come into bloom, but it's a good sign.
There's a town in New Jersey called Edison (if you've lived on the east coast and are Indian, chances are you have heard of this place). The town is shaped like a donut, and the hole in the donut is another town called Metuchen. So, basically, Metuchen is surrounded by Edison, but is its own entity. It even has its own feel to it. Edison is your typical central New Jersey, apartment complex, real estate cookie-cutter development, strip mall shopping extravaganza. Metuchen has a quaint downtown, colonial houses, and even a few little, nicely groomed parks. They peacefully coexist, and neither begrudges the other. I'm starting to think we should maybe adopt this model for the country. I know that's really cynical, but cut me some slack, I'm disenchanted just now.
I won't be talking too much politics in the next couple of months. I'm visiting family in the South during the Thanksgiving, and I will simply hold my tongue. Some times, you can get people over to your side more by doing than by talking. For example, most of my family is pretty much always going to be against gay marriage until someone in our family comes out of the closet. I keep hoping one of my cousins will take one for the team in that regard, but so far, they're only displaying heterosexual tendencies. In all seriousness though, change happens gradually, and experientially. When I was really young, my parents and all of their friends insisted that their children would all marry Indians. And the first person in my parents' friend circle (by the way, is friend circle a more common term among Indians than the general population? It certainly seems so...) who did not marry an Indian caused an uproar of massive proportions. Now, over a decade later, my parents, and all of their friends have pretty much all come over to the "Well, what can you do?" camp, and hardly bat an eyelash when they hear about interracial couples. First-hand experience counts for more than rhetoric any day of the week.
On a lighter side, got this e-mail this morning:
Did you also hear on the news as I did, that the 18-24 yr old demographic segment didn’t turn out in any greater proportion than in prior elections? I guess they chose to die instead of vote. I also liked the P. Diddy interview on CNN where he kept insisting that he was disenfranchised but could respond convincingly as to why, and when pushed he said it was because the candidates don’t “come to his neighborhood” as he grew up in Harlem. Then they asked him if he was going to vote and he responded “yeah, I’m gonna go to the East Side right after this.”
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