Time to go make Change!

Civic Engagement

For my civic engagement I decided to help out with the Obama campaign by volunteering for a day. They had me go canvass on Friday October 31st and Saturday November 1st to get the people out to vote that coming Tuesday, instead of just getting people to vote I decided to spend a little extra time talking to them about why they liked the different candidates and what they knew about the local election. I ended up in the Historic Baker district of Denver which is located just west of Broadway around 4th. What I discovered while canvassing was that many people did not want to talk to me about the election so close because they were so frustrated with the constant bombardment of election talk and information or they would just say I am going to vote, I’ve already early voted, and I’m filling out my mail in ballot tonight. But I did get lucky and got to speak to two individuals in great depth about the local election, and encouraged about 10 other people to go out and vote so I felt like I made a little bit of a difference. In total I spent around 3 hours on Friday and 3 hours on Saturday walking around canvassing.
Through out this experience I observed that many people were starting to get tense with the election getting so close, they also were extremely tired of talking about the election and how it would affect them. I think the mobilizing that Obama did to get people out to vote was really amazing; in the end I don’t think people were prepared to have a candidate spend that much time and attention on them.
In the end the best part of this experience was when I got to talk to one lady about amendment 46. At first she was really excited to vote yes on this amendment because she thought it would finally bring some sort of equality to Colorado. I was really hurt when I had to tell her the truth about how amendment 46 was really going to take away many opportunities for communities of color and for many women. She appeared really heartbroken and almost to the point of tears, that was until I talked to her about how she could tell everyone she knew to vote no on 46 and that would give us a fighting chance for equality. After we talked for about 30 minutes she seem really excited again, this time to educate her friends about the truth with amendment 46. After that conversation I felt really proud because I feel like I happened to change one vote in the favor for equality when it was almost lost to lack of knowledge. I just hope that the other people canvassing had some similar experiences and that was the reason 46 and 48 did not pass. In my heart I’m really glad that we had this opportunity to go out and make a difference and it appeared to of really paid off.

Amendment 48 & Civic Engagement

The Amendment 48 lecture and the assigned readings were very eye opening.  I didn't realize before how far reaching the implications of Amendment 48 are.  I have been talking with various friends about Amendment 48 since the lecture and we are all very horrified, not only by the effects the amendment would have on pregnant women's rights but also that many people are not aware of the full extent of these effects.  Even more horrifying, for me, is that people in favor of Amendment 48 also fail to realize the amendment will impact more than just the verdict of Roe v. Wade or rather they see this information as the "clever" attempt at persuasion from the opposing pro-choice argument.  

I was very surprised to hear some abortion abolitionists are now opposed to the redefinition of "person" due to their own experiences of being subjected to its use outside of the anti-abortion objective.  The fact that it's not worry about what could happen, it's what is already happening to pregnant women where such redefinitions have occurred and the denial of these events being caused by 48-esque approvals is shocking and scares me quite a bit. 

My disgust for this amendment led me to get involved with the "No on 48" campaign for the civic engagement project.  On October 11th I volunteered at Planned Parenthood to canvass for "No" from 11am - 5pm.  The three canvassing organizers did not seem to expect anyone to show up for this big canvassing day so when a mere six volunteers, including myself, arrived they were ecstatic.  Each volunteer received an information packet as the organizers began covering the facts of Amendment 48: what it would affect, how it would affect it, and all the little numbers and figures Americans find so compelling, most of which I had already learned in our lecture on the topic.  

The volunteers then paired up to practice what we would say during our door-to-door mission. I honestly did not do very well with this; I could have rambled on about the amendment any ol' day but when asked to sum up the major points in under a minute, I seemed to forget everything and became completely tongue-tied.  Luckily, this did not matter much when we split up in three groups and actually began canvassing in a Lone Tree neighborhood; we barely had a chance to get a word out before shoving a flyer into the hands of residents who were eager to close their doors.  My favorite encounter was with a woman who claimed to be having a party but was clearly not - there was no evidence of people enjoying themselves inside nor were there any cars parked outside of the house ("Elementary, my dear Watson!")  More often though, no one was home so we left the flyers at their door and hoped for the best. 

The whole ordeal wasn't exactly how I had imagined it.  I suppose I thought there would be more people, marching out in a mass to canvass or relentlessly calling voters and offering the facts, making all of Planned Parenthood buzz.  Even though our canvassing troop was very small, our time was valuable nonetheless, evident in the success of the amendment being denied by Colorado voters.  I garnered a sense of togetherness as well as a feeling of power in this togetherness.  I was also filled with a sense of pride for having a small part in defending choice. 

RE: The Law and Politics of Affirmative Action

I wasn't as unsettled by professor Melissa Hart's approach as others were given that she was unsure of who her audience would be and that as she apologized for her manner we kept confirming she was with like-minded people.  Also, for a person who seemed more used to a debate format on the subject it seems logical she would present a more biased view.  I liked her point that the system shouldn't be changed to conform to the racism of others; her specific example being those who look around a classroom and think a person was only accepted into a college because of the color of that person's skin or that they were cheated out of acceptance for the same reason.

Like Ashley, I can see where Ward Connerly is coming from, trying to eradicate any "racial preferences" to considerations based purely on merit but this is at the expense of diversity and community supports, among other things.  A person's qualifications are already considered before racial considerations are taken into account.  With abolishing affirmative action, how then is unconscious discrimination to be dealt with?  It is impossible to determine a person's intent in such a matter and without laws to safeguard against discrimination how can we assume fairness in, for example, application processes - that a person was not accepted for racially charged reasons rather than purely based on merit (as per Connerly's goal).  Unfortunately, it is just not plausible in our society.  I'm not saying affirmative action is a panacea, that with it discrimination is magically a thing of the past, but it serves as at least a leg-up, for lack of better explanation.

To say that gender or race based programs will still be funded but only if they are open to everyone doesn't make sense and completely defeats their purpose.  It is shocking just how many programs would be eliminated, even scholarships having anything to do with race or gender. Ye gods!

In concurrence with others, my worry is how deceptive the amendment is.  I remember a gal telling me once she was at the MLK day parade on Colfax and an African-American man approached her trying to get signature to get the amendment on the ballot.  She asked if he really knew what the amendment was about and it turns out he had even been deceived by the language in the amendment.  It's frightening that someone who would be directly affected by the amendment, thought they knew what it was all about and was fervently supporting it, was mistaken.  With that, the uninformed must be far more horrifyingly (and unknowingly) perplexed.

“Women in Politics”

Having Faith Winter come speak about women in electoral politics was a really amazing experience for me because she really motivated me to possibly run for a political office one day. I know the point of the speech was to empower women but as a queer man of color I felt like I am underrepresented as well and that if I ran for office I could finally have representation. This presentation also really made me think about my mom and giving her the invitation to run for an elected office. But then I remember that she is a Canadian citizen and can’t run for office.
The presentation also made me realize how important having women in office really is because it will help make the change that we thought women would get when they were given the right to vote. I still have faith that women can be the moral compass that they used as a campaign strategy in the suffrage movement. From my experience women do have a stronger moral sense and have the ability to create legislation that will promote equality and change. Something I learned from Faith’s speech was that when there are more women in a legislative body there tends to be more socially just laws passed. If this is true then as a social justice advocate I need to advocate more to have a large majority of women in all legislative bodies so that more socially just legislation will pass.
Lastly Faith really taught me the power of an elected office; she said she gets to make change as an elected official rather than trying to lobby for others to make change for her. If I really want to see drastic changes happen around me I will need to take a more active part in causing that change and one great way I can do that is by running for a political office. I just hope one day that I might possibly get the chance to run for a political office, but if not I hope that I can invite and encourage women around me to run for political offices so they can make more positive change in our society.

Equal Rights for Women

After hearing Dr. Syrett’s lecture on the Equal Rights Amendment, I did a lot of thinking about the equality women have strived for, whether it’s in politics, the workplace, or society in general. As much progress as women have made, one thing that struck me was that women still don’t have the ability to make their own decisions regarding their life without criticism or disapproval from society. The idea that women have a responsibility to stay at home with their kids is an antiquated belief but one that is still very relevant to today’s society. Many women are raised to believe that their main goal in life is to get married and be a mother. If they choose to deviate from that plan, they may have the right to but that doesn’t mean there won’t be societal repercussions. It amazes me that in a constantly evolving world, we can still think of women as somehow inferior to men. However, when I see women like Sarah Palin promoting the “hockey mom” image, I see that women themselves can be perpetuating their own problem. It’s not that I disagree with what she believes in; it’s the fact that she is promoting the idea that this is how women should be. As opposed to embracing the idea that each woman is an individual and individuals are different, she is promoting the stereotype that all women are hockey or soccer moms. I find it funny that she complains about the sexism she endures on the campaign trail, which is valid, yet she is unable to distinguish herself as anything but a “typical mom”. I believe women like Sarah Palin, who promote conformity as opposed to individuality, are seriously detrimental to the feminist movement.

Community Engagement

I realized that perhaps I was supposed to write a blog devoted entirely to my community engagement, rather than writing it as snippets in other blogs. So, just in case, I'm going to re-document it all here, and talk about my most recent experience as well.

I spent 2 hours volunteering for Hank Eng (CD6), and another hour at an event for him. I spent 2 hours volunteering for NARAL's No on 48 campaign, and a couple of hours at the Cable Center on Election night.

The latter two were my favorite activities. Especially after seeing No on 48 get trounced the way it did, tabling for something that I believed in so strongly made me feel like I'd done something important. Election night was extremely exciting because of all the energy in the room (it didn't hurt that Barack Obama won, either).

Finally, this Saturday, I spent an hour at the No on Prop 8 protest downtown. I'd never been to a protest before, but it felt wonderful to be involved in something that I hope will be historic. Someday, I hope people look back on Nov. 15, the day LGBTQ people and their allies rallied and marched throughout the country, and see it as the beginning of a larger movement to bring equal rights to the LGBTQ community. Either way, I saw a lot of great signs (and made one of my own). There were only a few counter-protesters, and while their signs and the attitudes that went along with them were very disturbing to me, it was wonderful to see that there were very little of them. By contrast, the capital was filled with people protesting for our rights. It gave me hope, and a sense of comradery, to see that so many people were willing to come out and say that Prop 8 was not okay.

Civic Engagement

I volunteered with the NO on 48! group, which I found to be very interesting. I was attracted to NO on 48! because I thought it was absolutely the most absurd thing I had heard of and if it had passed, it could have had serious consequences not only for women but all of America. Abortion is obviously a very touchy issue but amendment 48 was about so much more than abortion, another reason I was drawn to it. When one amendment can impact so many different areas of life, I think at the very least people have a responsibility to be completely informed and aware of the amendment. From my experience volunteering with the group, I found that most people had a general idea of the amendment would entail but they didn’t necessarily understand the extent to which it could go. Unfortunately, the group had a couple of tabling sessions cancelled but we were still able to adequately inform people on amendment 48, at least on the DU campus. One thing that really stuck out to me was that even though it was a “women’s issue” nearly all the volunteers at the meetings were male. The two student leaders were female but they were pretty much the only females. I thought it was great that men were helping out with the cause but there was part of me that wondered if it was more a reflection of a lack of female supporters than an abundance of male supporters. One thing I liked about volunteering for the group was that they were just focused on informing people, not changing their minds. I think there was a general understanding that if people were well informed on the issue then there was a very strong chance it wouldn’t pass. Although not everyone felt this way, many of the volunteers wisely avoided the abortion issue and instead focused on how it violated a woman’s constitutional right. By doing that, it made amendment 48 a non-partisan issue that almost every person, male or female, pro-life or pro-choice, could identify with.