I Was An Activist For A Day

Yesterday in a post on Open Salon I railed against a man who wrote a hateful piece about transgender people.  I was stymied by the content for a couple of days, but as the stepmother to a transgender son I felt it imperative to present a clear-headed (and accurate) rebuttal to what he had the audacity to post.  As soon as I hit "publish" the e-mails started to pour in in praise of my words.  I got two private e-mails from readers who told me that they themselves yearned to change genders but were afraid.  I got fan mail and he got hate mail.  I ignited an itty bitty cyber protest.  


Truth be told, I'm not well-versed or well-educated in enough issues to be a very convincing activist.  If I had taken part in the Occupy Movement in support of my authentic activist friends and the media chose to interview me I would have run in the other direction squealing.  I know it was against Wall Street.  Wall Street bad, everyone else good.  (Right?)  


I was in college in the early 80s when the cause was the anti-apartheid movement.  A shantytown was erected by the types of students who studied up on them and I really had no understanding of what was going on.  I would stop by to smoke a cigarette with my best friend who just needed a good reason to skip class.  I liked class.


Besides yesterday the only other time I felt my inner activist emerge was when the leader of the largest Neo-Nazi organization in America was scheduled to speak at the library in my small New England town.   As the daughter of a Holocaust survivor I felt that this was something I could really sink my teeth into.  I was practically foaming at the mouth.  His presence, along with his entourage of skinheads just a mile from my home sent me into a near frenzy.  When I joined the group of other protesters it was very clear that this smug man enjoyed watching liberals flail in anger and even though we represented a collective voice it just felt futile.  There would be no breakthrough, just like there will be no breakthrough for the man whose post I responded to yesterday.


It is inexcusable to me that my brain shuts down too quickly when I should be educating myself on things that matter, especially when they involve things that directly effect me.  I shy away from political conversation because I know I would appear as ignorant as I know I can sometimes be.  When I log on to news sites I'll very quickly skim the front page and get sidetracked by links to celebrity news. I know I'm extremely liberal but that's about the extent of it.  I know that I would speak very loudly about children's issues, gay civil rights issues and things that I know a little something about. I have become absolutely anti-capital punishment as a result of my volunteer work in a prison. I write checks to certain charities and make pledges to my friends in whatever walks or runs they're doing, but, at 47-years old I need to understand why Obama Care is fantastic for some and hated by others.  


I am the  parent of an 11-yr old daughter.  I always admired my father (and still do) for how he conveyed things to me in layperson's terms, not to dumb it down, but to help me to decipher what is important to know.  I want to be able to intelligently answer my daughter when she asks questions like, "Why is there so much violence in the Middle East?" and "What is the Tea Party?"  Maybe, by doing so, I would see a bit more of my inner activist, who I actually kind of like.