Saturday, August 13, 2011

A Moment of Hope

The past few months have been a rather difficult time for me.  The national political system of America is not just broken it has become the repository of whores that can be easily bought by the highest bidder.  The elation that I felt when Barack Obama was elected has faded into an underlying sense of disappointment and despair.  I never would have dreamed that Obama's eloquence could have been matched by his absence of spine.  In addition the recent events in the stock market added yet another blow to my illusion that one day I might be able to retire and leave my children a modicum of inheritance.
     I live  in the wealthiest Republican district in America.  Marsha Blackburn theoretically represents me in the House of Representatives.  She is the Marsha Blackburn that espouses all the talking points du jour of the Republican Party and never heard George Bush say anything that she didn't love.  I live in an area that upon first meeting me wants to know what church I go to in order to ascertain whether or not I'm decent or worthy of talking to.  I live in an area in which the sign that I had on my lawn supporting Obama during the last election was destroyed 3 times.  I live next to the town that hosted the Tea Party convention.
     So it is within this context that I went to the movies today.  I saw "The Help".  I believe that it is a wonderful experience that should not be missed.  I will not give any details about the movie except to state that it is about Mississippi in the 1960's and what it was like to be a Black maid at that time.  There is a scene in the movie in which one of the maids exacts a small measure of revenge on a woman who was deserving of all that she got.  To my total shock the mostly White audience applauded.  I found myself instantly sobbing.  For a brief moment hope poured through my body.  How glorious that every so often I can still experience the possibility of better.