{"id":4299,"date":"2012-09-05T17:28:14","date_gmt":"2012-09-05T21:28:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beginnersheart\/?p=4299"},"modified":"2012-09-05T17:28:14","modified_gmt":"2012-09-05T21:28:14","slug":"red-state-blue-state-what-to-do-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2012\/09\/red-state-blue-state-what-to-do-state.html","title":{"rendered":"red state\/ blue state ~ what-to-do state…?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Here\u2019s the thing about sanity in an election year: We<\/em> always have it. They<\/em> never do. And yes: lately that seems far too often to be the point. We are always the ‘good guys.’ They<\/em> are always the bad, or at least the sadly misinformed…<\/p>\n

Don’t misunderstand: I\u2019m NOT non-partisan. Not when to be a \u201cmoral\u201d person means to deny women access to choices about their own bodies and lives. Not when it means to enjoin from a pulpit the death of people unlike you. I need to get that up front, as a disclaimer. This is defiantly not<\/em> a neutral plea. As a woman, as a teacher, as an American, politics is personal. Especially this election.<\/p>\n

But as a kid growing up in the 60s & 70s, politics has always been personal. It\u2019s always been about real people, not simply ideals. I became political \u2013 as many of my generation did \u2013 with the Vi\u1ec7t Nam War. But saying that invokes adolescent dissatisfaction and rebellion. That wasn\u2019t the agenda for me. I grew up in Vi\u1ec7t Nam, and the people dying had names & faces. They were our cook, her husband, the amah and her family in their small village, farming. They were the beautiful students at the Vi\u1ec7tnamese American Association, who spoke French & Vi\u1ec7tnamese to me when I walked up to check out a library book. Later, they were my boyfriend, an African diplomat’s son, who was run off the road in the South, for driving an expensive motorcycle while black.\"\"<\/a> Or a girlfriend, who drove off to an abortion in an unmarked car, hiding in the floor so no one would see her.<\/p>\n

Even as a child I read. Everything. I\u2019ve always been a closet scholar, well before the doctorate came out of the woodwork. I want to know how everything works, the why \u00a0of the two-year-old taken to extremes. My father & mother would talk about anything \u2013 politics, religion, world events; anything except \u2018personal\u2019 things \u2013 in front of us. And I listened.<\/p>\n

The point is that I had a rich resource context. I could look stuff up: in home encyclop\u00e6dias, at the library, at the Vi\u1ec7tnamese American Association. I could ask my folks, or the big kids on the bus, or the house help. And I did. I wanted lots of sources, even then. I wanted to know what everyone thought \u2013 that all their voices be heard. I didn\u2019t think of it that way then, but even as a young child I knew that what Daddy thought would be very different from Chi\u0323 Ba, my sister\u2019s amah. And both vantage points were necessary.<\/p>\n

I questioned, even as a child. Perhaps one big difference between a red & blue. Every blue I know questions everything. Reds? If it\u2019s faith, usually not. And faith bleeds, for most of us, into all we do. Me? I questioned even faith.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\u201cHow do you know there aren\u2019t any animals in heaven?\u201d<\/em> I asked my Sunday\u00a0 School teacher. <\/em>\u201cAnimals don\u2019t have souls,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0 <\/em>he explained. <\/em>\u201cHow do you know that?\u201d<\/em> His final answer? THERE ARE NO ANIMALS IN HEAVEN. \u201cFine,\u201d <\/em>\u00a0<\/em>I responded w\/ my<\/strong> final answer. <\/em>\u201cThen I don\u2019t want to go to heaven. What kind of heaven doesn\u2019t have dogs? I\u2019m staying with the dogs.\u201d<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n

Poor man. He had no answers. And the non-questioners still don\u2019t, for many of my questions. Like… what about birth control for women w\/ endometriosis? I had endometriosis: it’s horribly painful. And it can leave you infertile, if not treated. Does that mean poor women just give up, if they can’t afford the birth control pills that help?<\/p>\n

The problem today is that we are so deeply divided. It isn\u2019t a case of just representing the people like you, should you win the election. You can\u2019t ignore half the country \u2013 neither the reds nor the blues can, or should. We need to talk. But no one is talking. We each have our own keystone issues: those so important to us we don\u2019t think we can compromise any. Okay. But that doesn\u2019t mean we can\u2019t talk, and take the level of rhetoric and misunderstanding down.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Friend B is never going to agree with me that the Bible is not a literal document.\u00a0 That belief is integral to his way of thinking. But it took a lot of talking and being kind w\/ one another before I realised that this was even his issue. He\u2019s a very smart man. But his faith is a keystone issue, and I accept that. I can even admire it. Even when we disagree strongly.<\/p>\n

Friend P is actually a friend of my sister\u2019s, but almost a sister herself. She is absolutely committed to her faith as well, and will look at nothing not okayed by her own, personal, down-the-street church.<\/p>\n

Nor will Friend M, although in his case the issue is more the Bible as life text. He\u2019s studied it a lot, and feels he understands it. And some things are just so, he says.<\/p>\n

But I also have Friend S, who spent most of highschool being beat up for a homosexuality he didn’t even know to name. He suffers — who wouldn’t? — from his own nightmares still. And Friend W, whose Native American children attend a small town Oklahoma school (public) that lacks wifi. Still. How can this be fair? How can policies that continue these injustices — continue to fund private schools with public monies — be just?<\/p>\n

I have long histories w\/ each of these people, outside and beyond political conversation. And we agree on many\u00a0 things. And that\u2019s the point: we have multiple talking points. Because we have sat together, broken bread, visited. Eaten dessert. In other words? We\u2019re more than red & blue. We\u2019re in this together.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>But that\u2019s not what many Americans seem to believe any more. It\u2019s as if we are willfully blind to the half of the country that disagrees \u2013 viscerally, bone-deep, morally repelled disagreement. No matter which candidate wins \u2013 from small elections to the national one that colours and permeates all media today \u2013 half of the country looks to be disenfranchised. The reds will not compromise, they say, on \u2018issues of faith.\u2019 The blues will not compromise on \u2018issues of equity.\u2019 And when you frame things like that? It\u2019s hard to get a conversation going\u2026<\/p>\n

As a former teacher, I see almost all things through a classroom lens. I hear about homophobia, and think of C, a lovely young man in one of my classes, who put a face on what it is to be gay, male, & HIV positive in Oklahoma. I listen to someone make an off-hand racist comment and think of all the many teachers who have come through graduate classes I taught: S, & D, & another S, and R\u2026 and more. So when you talk to me of general \u2018 rules of faith,\u2019 I think of real people. It\u2019s all personal.<\/p>\n

But I acknowledge that for most of us, our faith is also personal. Intimately so. How to reconcile that w\/ protections \u2013 legal, governmental \u2013 for these people I love? We can argue until we\u2019re purple (and maybe that\u2019s a good idea\u2026?) about what one faith\u2019s text says, or what a different translation contends. Faiths are channeled through people, and people are highly fallible. Otherwise, they\u2019re known as gods\u2026\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I don’t believe that half of this amazing country should be disenfranchised. Nor do I believe that politics can continue down this poisonous path. We can’t just call each other ugly names — and they can get incredibly ugly: racist, hateful, life-denying ugly — and pretend the others don’t exist.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know what to do about any of this. I want Americans to talk, and I haven\u2019t a clue how to make it happen. My own family is deeply divided on these issues; we could be a microcosm of red & blue\u2026<\/p>\n

How do you handle it, those of you reading? What do you do when people you love say & believe things that will deeply hurt other people you love? I\u2019d love to hear. My beginner\u2019s heart feels pretty fragile these days\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here\u2019s the thing about sanity in an election year: We always have it. They never do. And yes: lately that seems far too often to be the point. We are always the ‘good guys.’ They are always the bad, or at least the sadly misinformed… Don’t misunderstand: I\u2019m NOT non-partisan. Not when to be a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":398,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[189],"tags":[11,1187,262,395,1231,394],"class_list":["post-4299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-beginners-heart","tag-buddhism","tag-buddhist-blogs","tag-common-ground","tag-politics","tag-talking"],"yoast_head":"\nred state\/ blue state ~ what-to-do state...? - Beginner's Heart<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Here\u2019s the thing about sanity in an election year: We always have it. They never do. 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