More About Canvassing

A note about canvassing. Back and forth.
Memory and narrative shifts from present to past, ahead and back. I just realized that I needn't care so much about the linear order of this narrative.

Canvassing:
We were sent in pairs out into the neighborhoods adjacent to Woodland Heights. If you don't know this neighborhood in Richmond, you should understand that in this small, contained neighborhood bounded by city parks on the east and west, the river on the north, and Semmes Avenue to the south the majority of homes have Obama signs in their yards. The campaign clearly recognizes the voting patterns of this precinct and is not concerned about either voter turn out or allegiance to the democratic ticket. But just 1/2 mile or a mile south, and a mile west the neighborhood is predominantly newly registered working class, and predominantly African American. These neighborhoods were especially critical for gaining voter involvement.
Several times during a route when I engaged a resident who answered the door, I found myself welling up with tears (of relief, of gratitude, for the connection to this other neighbor on the other side of the door or the threshold, in response to the sheer enormity of the prospect and the depth of my hope). My experience of Richmond is of a divided city. I cringe to say this. White and black. I cringe to see how simplistic and damaging this is. Before I continue, how do I change that? Please write me if you have any thoughts. Is it true for them? The folks I was canvassing? Another part of my tears: for that division in my own mind. As I write, I think that may be the thing that triggers the intensity of emotion. The sense of division within myself. The sadness in response to that.

One day my partner (friend and neighbor, Cathy Nelson) and I walked up to a house on our list of voters to canvass, with a woman sitting on the porch on a warm and sunny Sunday afternoon. A few men were walking out of the house, one with a can of beer. We identified ourselves as with the Obama campaign, making sure that folks knew where to vote and asking them if we could count on their vote. One man laughed and thanked us and then with a very thick slurry speech, called out something like "next a Chinese American, or a Mexican American!" On several occasions, I had been self-conscious about my pronunciation of words. Did I sound like a Northerner (even worse, a New Yorker?)? A very white person? A white, privileged person? A person for whom the right to vote and the security of a good education is assumed?

A note about now, and today. As I write this post, I recognize things about me that surprise and sadden me. My own divisiveness. But recognizing this as my frame of reference at least awards some connection to self. (“Oh, so that’s how it is”.) Facing myself, facing oneself. I am posting from Ithaca, New York where I am a guest critic for the Photography classes. I met with the seniors today and was unnerved by the very dense opacity in their verbal presentations. I heard fragments, and ideas, and references to readings. They talked about irritations and frustrations and attempts and desires but the motivation behind their work escaped them. It is so painfully familiar this stage in the creative process. Of desperately plumbing for some connection to self with very few tools to excavate. I’ll write about this another time, I hope. But the point I wish to make is that revealing parts of the self is so incredibly difficult and laborious. But we all try so hard. How noble.