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On Streets And At The Convention, Separate Realities
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On Streets And At The Convention, Separate Realities
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by Ann Morrissett Davidon
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Watching the orations and celebrations of Republicans at their national convention on TV, I began to feel like Alice in Wonderland.
I felt I had stepped through the looking glass into a world where everything was the opposite of what I and millions of other Americans see as the real world.
That feeling was intensified by the fact that on the Sunday before the Republican convention started, I had walked peaceably up the Parkway with a great variety of Unity 2000 people demonstrating for various peace-and-justice issues that we thought the RNC would not be addressing.
Then, while the Republicans reveled in their opulent world, I spent several days at the Shadow Convention at the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg Center listening to a wide range of eminent panelists discuss what they see as they real world.
On the Republican side of the looking glass, I heard that America is better off than it has ever been. (Well, except for That Man in the White House whom we've been forced to suffer for the past eight years.) The well-dressed, predominantly white delegations were assured of this unprecedented prosperity by their prosperous speakers as well as by the lavish parties and perks provided by their wealthy corporate sponsors.
From the Republicans I also learned that the black folks invited to entertain them have rhythm (except Colin Powell, who compensated by giving an articulate speech) and that tax cuts are good for CEOs and struggling multinational corporations. All is not bright, however: The poverty-stricken Pentagon desperately needs more money for missiles and missile defenses, bombers, etc. And worst of all, there's still that sybaritic hypocrite in the White House, with little Al hanging on to his coattails.
Back at the Shadow Convention in my real world, I learned from former secretary of labor Robert Reich, writer-editors Jim Wallis and Lewis Lapham, author-educator Jonathan Kozol, Democratic Sen. Paul Wellstone of Minnesota, Republican Rep. Mark Sanford of South Carolina, Rev. Jesse Jackson, City Councilman Angel Ortiz, Cheri Honkala and many other participants, that this country still has huge problems.
Our purported prosperity has created billionaires, but it has also left millions of people behind. In this rich land, many live in poverty, without adequate schools, health care, jobs that pay living wages, etc. Almost half of all eligible voters don't vote. Almost 2 million people are in prison - more than in any other country in proportion to its population. And a disproportionate number of our prisoners are people of color and nonviolent drug offenders. More people are executed here than in any other democracy. And the Pentagon spends a huge portion of all our tax money on "defense" systems that, even if they "worked," would fuel the arms race and threaten the balance of relative world peace, while enriching the largest multinational corporations.
And out in the streets, on this side of the looking glass, some disenchanted young people were venting their anger and frustration at "the system" by blocking traffic and making people angry at them. A few of these youths stupidly vandalized property and hostilely challenged the police - who, thanks to the prudent policies of Police Commissioner John F. Timoney, were this time restrained and nonviolent.
Which is the real world? The largely white world of rich people who control most of the country's wealth - or the poor, largely African American and Latino communities where children grow up among trash-filled lots and abandoned buildings, with inadequate health care or education, with drugs as a tempting source of escape as well as cash, and with prison the future of about one of every five young men of color?
The truth, of course, is that they're both part of the real world - with a large, often confused, mainly white, but increasingly rainbow-colored middle class in between. The question that remains for all of us is: Which presidential candidate and party, if any, will face up to the dark side of the looking glass and deal with the tough issues and inequities that remain - not only compassionately, but effectively?
Ann Morrissett Davidon (amdavidon@att.net) lives and writes in Philadelphia.
Copyright 2000 Philadelphia Inquirer
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