Yeah. So. Last night was fantastic. Yesterday morning I got up at 6:30am, got in line at my polling place at 7:30am, and voted (not by absentee for the first time); obviously, for Barack Obama.

Work has been insane and intense for the past couple weeks, and reached it's peak no doubt on Tuesday--it just so happened we two days of shooting in the office, at the same time I was making final rounds of edits on a few videos as feedback came in from the client, in addition to creating an entire website within these two days as well.

My brain was fried, and I literally didn't even have time to stop and think about what was going on outside in the world around me. I'm pretty sure I sat down at my desk, and 10 hours later (no bathroom/lunch breaks)got up and left.

I got home just before my roommates--oh yeah, speaking of which...I have a new roommate....did I mention Ray moved out?

Anyways---we all sat down in the living room and watched calmly as the returns started coming in. Okay, maybe not in complete calm. I have to admit I shouted at Chris Matthews a few times for picking fights with Rachel Maddow, who was having a hard time getting a word in at all among the 5 male anchors.

Gradually as the numbers kept rising higher and higher for Obama, I finally broke out of whatever protective "don'tget-your-hopes-up/prepare-for-the-worst" funk I was in and started to get excited that this might really happen (not to say that the whole time I wasn't also thinking, "It has to. There's no way we can afford to lose this one").

So I got a phone call from my mother, who wanted to hear about my morning voting experience (she and Marc didn't vote), and Marc kept yelling stuff at the phone for my mom to relay to me, which she refused, so he grabbed it from her to tell me himself.

Ironically, disturbingly, and LITERALLY when I saw the screen flash that Obama had just cleared enough votes to have locked in the win, I was listening to racist fucking jokes from my dad. If you can call refusing to acknowledge what someone is saying "listening".

Of course then I started talking over him and repeating, "Obama won. Obama won. They just called it, Obama won."

I don't know if I was still in a state of shock or if the low I was at listening to this crap on the other end of the phone brought me down so much I couldn't properly establish my level of excitement, but the tone of my voice was completely level. I wasn't shouting, or yelling, or cheering.

I can't recall Alyssa's reaction...she was probably freaking out, but Drew was sitting next to me and in disbelief at the side of the conversation he'd been hearing (my cell is broke, so speakerphone let out the 'jokes' that were being relayed) and then was simply stunned into silence at the news.

As I tried to hurry my parents off the line with the excuse that I wasn't listening to them anyway, and I needed to go watch the tv, Marc thought it was appropriate to tell me that I took part in making history, and that this day would be one of the biggest moments of its kind to occur in my lifetime. I agreed. However he followed with, "When he gets shot, it'll probably even be bigger than Dr. Martin Luther King getting killed."

Now, I am aware that my parents are very conservative. Perhaps I delude myself into thinking they aren't as bad as they seem....and I do know for a fact that Marc was saying what he was half in sarcasm and to get a rise out of me, and half in what he honestly believed--whether he supported those jokes and predictions or not. Still, I could not get over the fact that they could even be behaving in such a way in a time, literally the same moment, when our country had come far enough to finally elect a person of color to the most trusted office to lead, govern, and protect us.

To me, his winning wasn't the most exciting part of the evening. Seeing Ohio turn blue, and realizing that he won before Florida's votes had even come in was amazing. Watching the number of electoral votes reach higher and higher, well into the 300s, was unbelievable. The fact that voter turnout increased by over 14 million people was beyond inspiring.

Knowing definitively that more Americans than ever, and the majority of this country was pushing us into the future, and recognizing the opportunity this candidate offers us to change for the better restored much of the faith I had lost in our country during the last few weeks of disgusting campaigning/rallies/reports coming out in the news.

I feel like the America of tomorrow might once again be the America I believed in as a child; and what's even better than hoping for that day to come is knowing that the America of today is consciously striving to BE that America of tomorrow.

Obviously nothing is better right now. I can't help but be reminded of that when I see that on the same day we dealt a blow to the civil rights issues of old, in this same election three states wrote discrimination into their constitutions, eliminating rights from another group of our citizens.

American gay rights were set back as propositions and amendments that deny or prevent the legalization of same-sex marriage were approved in Arizona, and Florida, and marriage rights were actually taken away in California. Arkansas also made it illegal for non-married couples to adopt (targeted towards gay/lesbian couples, as made clear by it's proponents/supporters).

However, that last one would actually remove my rights to adopt should I ever reside in Arkansa considering I don't plan on using the institution of marriage to validate any future relationship. Further more, the wording of the Florida initiative also seems to insinuate that were I to live within their state borders I would also be denied the right to a "civil union" (something more appealing to me than marriage) by declaring to "protect marriage as the legal union of only one man and one woman as husband and wife," while providing that "no other legal union that is treated as marriage or the substantial equivalent thereof shall be valid or recognized."

Despite the truths we hold self evident, equality is hardly ever handed to us. We keep fighting because we must. And we keep fighting because we know we can win. It will take time – it always takes time. Granted, talk about fighting for equality may sound like b.s. coming from my position of privilege as young white middle class citizen who has only recently begun to know the fear of losing rights I already posses (with respect to my sex, and the threats against Roe v. Wade) but this is extremely disappointing to me.


I think it's fairly obvious that I would never encourage similar laws should they not have the chance to directly affect my own life or those I care about. However all of this voting to REMOVE rights from American citizens when our country is founded on the ideals of "life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness" is absurd.

Placing a BAN preventing certain people from certain rights is in no way granting them a right to pursue happiness and freedom in their own life.

I am SO incredibly thankful that residents of South Dakota and Colorado were wiser than to put through laws removing women's rights to decide if/when/how they would like to have children; laws that would that would dare suggest it's not up to a teen and her parents to decide whether to carry a pregnancy initiated through rape to term, but rather the government's decision, or that would allow a court to order a woman to undergo major surgery and have her baby via c-section without her consent (granting the hospital custody of the infant BEFORE, DURING, and AFTER delivery), relying on the argument that fetuses are legal persons with rights seperate from the mother--and in some cases rights to life outweighing those of the mother. Worse yet, these same propositions would have required criminal punishment of women who violated these orders.

There was a lot at stake with this election, and for the most part I feel overwhelmingly relieved for things to have gone the way they did. For those issues that didn't result favorably, or that remain vulnerable to threats in the future, I take comfort in the hope and trust I have in our newly elected democratic senate, house, and presidential administrations. The hard work of real change still lies ahead. But now at least we have a chance. Can we create that more perfect union? Yes, you're damn right we can.

My Space
My Tube
My Demo Reel