These "Divided States"

I hope that like me, for a brief spell yesterday, maybe all day, you didn't feel like you lived in what blogger field negro describes as "these divided states."  I hope you felt something like thrilled, elated, inspired, hopeful, moved, renewed, empowered, even just relieved.

Yesterday, I rose at 6 am and left a friend's suburban Maryland home at 7:30 a.m.  We waited on-line to get into the train station, waited in standing room only on a delayed, fitfully moving train into downtown, then walked for over an hour over 12 blocks to find our way onto the Mall.  There were some tense moments in the crowds (for the claustrophobic among us), and my little group of four was starting to unravel, feeling defeated that we'd ever reach the Mall.  We began making back-up plans, calculating train rides up to another friend's home to reach the television in time.

But we made it.  All the way to the Washington Monument, too far to see the Capitol, but sandwiched b/w the Monument and the White House in front of a Jumbotron.  Surrounded by thousands of our fellow Americans...

It was tremendous.  And freezing.  And exhausting.  And FUN.

A 12 year old told me she loved the free concert at the Lincoln Memorial on Sunday because it was fun to sing national songs "without being ironic."  (Kids today!)  It was moving to hear the roars of approval for not just Obama, but for Michelle Obama and the Clintons.  It was touching to hear the man behind me urge the crowd to be civil as Bush approached the Capitol, that we refrain from booing the exiting President. (Few listened.)  It was just so cool to hear Obama's words through the speakers and also reverberating around the Mall.  I have pictures from all angles of people's fists, cameras and flags raised in celebration, capturing the joy and exuberance on their faces as we hugged and cheered and danced around for several hours in the frigid air.  (Uploading to come.)

Hours later, my friends and I drove home through neighborhoods with one boarded up building after another.  One of those friends talked about how her attempts to volunteer at an inaugural event was marred by the insider access garnered to a chosen elite of volunteers while others were kept outside in the cold for hours without food provided.  Politics is so much about insider access, who you know, who you can influence, and the ideas in play at any given moment are those crafted by these professional dealmakers - many of whom are well-intentioned, many of whom are not.  Regardless of motivation, as readers know and commenters have already pointed out, there is a vast and debilitating gap between poor Americans and those who represent them.

Obama talks a great deal about government transparency, accountability, access and citizen participation.  For all this well-meaning talk, we have a lot of work to do to improve democratic participation and self-determination in poor neighborhoods around the country.

Today is the first day of this work in a new Administration.  The NY Times has a great story about the cultural diversity President Obama brings to the White House.  My hope for today and the future is that an equally diverse and experience group of activists and poor Americans together work to eradicate poverty and inequality here at home.

As a bunch of Baltimore kids repeatedly cheered and chanted on the Metro last night, I'm "fired up!" and "Ready to go!"

Something tells me you are too.