On remaining, yes, optimistic
While national politics breed despair, MOLLY PASCAL takes heart in local actions that inspire and show that the activist spirit is alive
The day after the November 2016 election, I fell into a depression. It was unlike any other depression I’d experienced before, in that it had nothing to do with a romantic relationship, and yet the symptoms felt similar. I felt empty. I felt despair. I ate a lot of chocolate. Worst of all, I’d have to wait years to date again!
In high school, in order to earn credit for a history class, I volunteered at the phone banks for the Michael Dukakis campaign. It was boring work. I read from a script. People cut me off or hung up on me, and maybe one out of 100 said something kind, like, “We’re eating dinner, could you call back later?” Republicans, Democrats, Independents and Undecideds all ate dinner, I quickly learned, from 4 p.m. to 11 p.m.
Still, I wore a crown of elation; I was participating in the great machinery of democracy! I sat in a large mostly empty room in the United Steelworkers building, among people of all backgrounds and ages, spinning the dial of a rotary telephone. My index finger ached by the end of the night.
Mr. Dukakis lost, of course. Looking back, I realize that’s perhaps where my own skepticism of the political system began. Instead of feeling as if I’d tried, as if I’d done my part, I decided that I would never again sit in a folding chair at a long table making phone calls to people who really don’t want you to call them.
After George W. Bush beat Al Gore, I swore to myself that I would never again care so much about an election — not because I didn’t want to, but because of how much caring burned me out. After the Gore/Bush election, I knew the definition of chad: It was me, not hanging, but lying discarded and crushed on the floor, without much will to get up and vote again.
It didn’t work out that way. I tend to go to bed by 10 p.m. every night, but during elections I act like a 21-yearold on her birthday, substituting news for alcohol. I stay up until the West Coast polls close, glued to the television or computer, addicted to each internet refresh.
I needed to find a way to care without letting the news of the day take over my life. I was starting to scare my colleagues with my doomsday talk. Most people want to talk about the Steelers or the latest episode of “This Is Us.” I want to discuss our real-life “House of Cards.”
So I’ve been looking for productive alternatives to refreshing obsessively The New York Times website. No matter who we call president, we’ve got to wake up and feed the kids, go to work and carry out the trash. In other words, we return to our role as local citizens, and this has actually been my saving grace.
For it is in the local community that I’ve witnessed some of the greatest passion, advocacy and return on effort.
• These changes start in our own streets in Pittsburgh — literally, in the street.
Just ask Joanna Vilensky, a former Squirrel Hill resident now living in Ohio. A mother of two, Mrs. Vilensky and her family lived near the dangerous intersection of Beechwood Boulevard and Monitor Street. Cars were taking a hard right turn into a school zone, without slowing down or yielding. Mrs. Vilensky believed that the problem could be easily solved with an additional stop sign. She petitioned the city. She and her neighbors lodged complaints with 311 and made their case to city officials. It worked. As of last summer, children can cross safely at what I’ve named the Vilensky Stop Sign.
This sounds like small potatoes. Yet every potato affects the entire
crop. Making campaign phone calls to people who don’t want to answer them only served in making me feel impotent. Making calls to local politicians, who are there to serve their constituents, can yield real results and empower us.
The Vilensky Stop Sign shows us how to move on from political despair and improve our communities. For many people, lately that has meant participating in a march, writing letters, signing petitions, volunteering or donating money.
Since Donald Trump’s election, so many friends have inspired me with their activism. Some are showing up each week at “Tuesdays with Toomey” to convey their opinions about Mr. Trump’s Cabinet nominations to U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey at his office.
Swissvale resident Joylette Portlock spends her free time creating fun, free child-friendly videos on environmental stewardship, which she posts at www.communitopia.org.
Siobhan Vivian, a Highland Park resident and nationally acclaimed author of young adult books, spearheaded an effort to bring flowers to the Islamic Center of Pittsburgh the day after the terrorist attack on a mosque in Canada.
Shannon and Dan Rugh, owners of the Pittsburghbased Commonwealth Press, used their print shop to produce T-shirts that read “Pittsburgh Loves All Yinz.”
My husband, a math professor with many students from the Middle East, hung a sign on his office door that read, “This office is free of hatred, intolerance, and prejudice. Come in and feel safe.”
These are all small but important potatoes.
People can survive on potatoes.
But I feel hope when I look at the many people, the individual citizens, who are.
I feel hopeless when I focus on the person who sprayed graffiti on the New York subway that read, “Jews Belong in the Ovens.” But I feel hope when I focus on the individual who pulled out the hand sanitizer and the many New Yorkers on that train who joined together to erase the words.
Believe it or not, I have even found hope in social media.
I’ve seen little dialogue, but Facebook discussions have exposed me to some excellent insight into political history. It has facilitated a wildfire of information, such as where to meet or how to get to the Jan. 21 Women’s March in Washington, D.C. — and even where to find a bathroom at the event.
Facebook is a modernday political flier: People post addresses and phone numbers of politicians, provide information about protests, link to interesting oped pieces or just offer inspirational quotations.
• We are witnessing a reawakening of our country’s activist spirit.
When I was growing up, my parents recalled the 1960s as being one of the most remarkable times in their lives. They could have remembered it only as a time of despair, of the Vietnam War and of civil liberty abuses.
Instead, they passed on to me, with nostalgic pride, the stories of unity in resistance. They marched against the war. They marched for the equality of all people. It felt like a terrible time, much as now, because many people didn’t want to change, and their reaction was to grip violently onto the status quo.
There are days that my hope wanes. Nothing causes tachycardia quite like a new executive order. I try to remember, however, that when the grip tightens, that means we are close to progress.
We don’t give up when the grip tightens. We advance.