I’m a Pennsylvanian turned liberal San Franciscan, and I want to change your politics
I’m so lucky to be a liberal in San Francisco. I can laugh at “Florida Man” headlines as jokes and I don’t have to worry about African American Studies classes being banned for my kid. I can sit back and relax in my liberal bubble and let the world around me burn.
That is, I could … until it was my hometown of Cambridge Springs that started to burn.
Liberals in large cities often feel that they are hopelessly siloed from the rest of the country or even the globe.
They go on living their crunchy lives and lamenting over matcha, “I wish there is something I could do.” It is time to acknowledge that there is always something we can do. Community organizing should have no boundaries when it comes to making a better world.
Cambridge Springs is a small town in Crawford County, just south of Erie. I graduated from a small high school in Penncrest school district.
The district’s school board recently voted, by a small majority, to pull books from school libraries with perceived sexual content.
As a proud alumna who also believes in democracy and the right for students to build independent relationships to literary texts, I felt it was my duty to alert other alumni and write an open letter to the school board that eventually garnered over 500 signatures.
Almost immediately, I received calls to “stay in your lane,” “worry about your own kid, and to “keep your LGBTQ in California. We don’t want it in our schools!” These arguments supposedly supersede my identity as someone who grew up in the area and cares about the people there, graduated from that school, teaches about issues of educational access, and a mother who wants to make the world a better place for her son and all kids.
People are quick to discourage individuals from getting involved without thinking about how their politics are already being influenced by people who don’t have a stake in the local community. The national news media, non- local politicians, and large corporations don’t care what happens in our towns to people we know.
The Supreme Court’s “Citizens United” ruling opened up the floodgates for billionaires and Super PACs to pour money into any political cause they felt inclined to support.
An individual person doesn’t have the resources to throw money at any issue. We have to concentrate our organizing efforts on issues that affect us personally.
The argument that shook me the most was “Worry about your own kid.” The truth is, I am worried for my own kid. I want him to be able to meet his cousins and aunts without being exposed to institutionalized hate. I want him to be in community with his family. Cross-pollinating in politics creates exposure and dialogue, and turns its back on censorship.
When I step back into the politics of my hometown, I’m reminding you that you’re in a bubble of your own. I’m not so naive to think that I can magically pop your bubble and leave you gasping for the air and searching for the ground on which you once stood. Likewise, I don’t believe that you can pop my bubble. The question is, “How do we float together?”
I also care about your kids. I want your children to be able to find themselves at a future workplace where they are not full of trepidation, fear, and hatred of the people who could be their colleagues, friends, or themselves.
I want them to be able to receive direction from their trans Black CEO or communicate with their subordinates regardless of their identities, in ways that are compassionate. I want them to have autonomy over their bodies in every situation.
The United States of America is a union in which we democratically participate in shaping our collective experiences. Think of it as an additional, collective bubble. We are too interconnected to keep believing that our local politics don’t have national or global ripples.
What happens in rural PA will inevitably affect what happens across the country. We see this in the almost copy-and-paste actions from one county to another that have been leap frogging across the country.
We all need to step up to make the world a better place for everyone. It’s ok for someone from Los Angeles to write that postcard to a voter in Georgia, just like it’s ok to pay 28 cents a day to help a starving child across the globe.
We are all connected and we all have a responsibility. Pop your bubbles, be open to new ideas, and get involved, even when people tell you to mind your own business.