Why one conflicted Southern black voter just can’t decide
https://www.washingtonpost.com/life...re-top-stories_undecided-625pm:homepage/story
On the Saturday morning 10 days before the Georgia primary, Jackson — tall, curvy, hair she’s recently vowed to stop chemically processing — puts on her sneakers and goes for a walk with her niece.
“Bernie is saying things that I wish we could pull off,” says the niece, Madinah Al-Uqdah, a college student who has been enamored of Sanders since a rally several months ago. His support for affordable tuition “was a big deal to me.”
“It is hard not to admire Bernie,” Jackson agrees as they power-walk through a landscaped park.
“Yes. And he gets his money from the people. I think that says a lot.” Al-Uqdah says she also appreciates Sanders’s consistency of position. “I’ve seen 10-year-old videos with the same message.”
“He’s been consistent. I’ll give him that.”
“And that’s important!”
Jackson is proud of the way that her niece, an extroverted music major who was recently crowned Miss Morris Brown College, is following the election. The two of them each watched a town hall meeting that aired a few nights before. Jackson took notes on Sanders’s performance on her smartphone, and she tries to remember them now. “He said he was arrested at 22 for fighting segregation. He said race relations will be better under him than under Obama.”
She can believe that. Minority politicians are always under scrutiny, she thinks, afraid to be seen as focusing too much on their own people’s issues. Sanders wouldn’t be under that same scrutiny. Would Hillary? Was it possible that Hillary, as the first female president, would somehow end up doing less for women?
“I don’t feel like I owe my vote to her,” Jackson explains to Al*Uqdah. “But I feel that, if I have a qualified person who reflects my gender, it’s hard not to make history.” What if, she says, she threw away that chance and didn’t get another one in her lifetime?
“That could be problematic,” Al-Uqdah admits. But if Clinton isn’t the nominee this time around, she says, there will probably be another woman next time.
“Hmm,” says Jackson. This young optimism is what gives her pause about Sanders. Her niece has spent most of her cognizant life in a world with a black president, and Jackson worries that this has skewed Madinah’s concept of what is possible. Madinah, at 19, has never experienced someone telling her that she should hire a white male business partner to make some of her clients more comfortable. Jackson has.
They start back for home, up a slope they have deemed “Cardiac Hill” and as Jackson picks up the pace Al-Uqdah complains that her legs are starting to cramp.
“Now you’re ‘feeling the burn,’ aren’t you, Miss Bernie? Feel the burn.”
Pulled in two directions
For Jackson, it was always supposed to be Hillary. It was supposed to be Hillary even back in 2008, until Barack Obama entered the presidential scene. But even then, when she decided to switch her support to Obama, Jackson told herself that Clinton would be the presumptive nominee the next time around. She would have another chance to vote for a woman then........
https://www.washingtonpost.com/life...re-top-stories_undecided-625pm:homepage/story
On the Saturday morning 10 days before the Georgia primary, Jackson — tall, curvy, hair she’s recently vowed to stop chemically processing — puts on her sneakers and goes for a walk with her niece.
“Bernie is saying things that I wish we could pull off,” says the niece, Madinah Al-Uqdah, a college student who has been enamored of Sanders since a rally several months ago. His support for affordable tuition “was a big deal to me.”
“It is hard not to admire Bernie,” Jackson agrees as they power-walk through a landscaped park.
“Yes. And he gets his money from the people. I think that says a lot.” Al-Uqdah says she also appreciates Sanders’s consistency of position. “I’ve seen 10-year-old videos with the same message.”
“He’s been consistent. I’ll give him that.”
“And that’s important!”
Jackson is proud of the way that her niece, an extroverted music major who was recently crowned Miss Morris Brown College, is following the election. The two of them each watched a town hall meeting that aired a few nights before. Jackson took notes on Sanders’s performance on her smartphone, and she tries to remember them now. “He said he was arrested at 22 for fighting segregation. He said race relations will be better under him than under Obama.”
She can believe that. Minority politicians are always under scrutiny, she thinks, afraid to be seen as focusing too much on their own people’s issues. Sanders wouldn’t be under that same scrutiny. Would Hillary? Was it possible that Hillary, as the first female president, would somehow end up doing less for women?
“I don’t feel like I owe my vote to her,” Jackson explains to Al*Uqdah. “But I feel that, if I have a qualified person who reflects my gender, it’s hard not to make history.” What if, she says, she threw away that chance and didn’t get another one in her lifetime?
“That could be problematic,” Al-Uqdah admits. But if Clinton isn’t the nominee this time around, she says, there will probably be another woman next time.
“Hmm,” says Jackson. This young optimism is what gives her pause about Sanders. Her niece has spent most of her cognizant life in a world with a black president, and Jackson worries that this has skewed Madinah’s concept of what is possible. Madinah, at 19, has never experienced someone telling her that she should hire a white male business partner to make some of her clients more comfortable. Jackson has.
They start back for home, up a slope they have deemed “Cardiac Hill” and as Jackson picks up the pace Al-Uqdah complains that her legs are starting to cramp.
“Now you’re ‘feeling the burn,’ aren’t you, Miss Bernie? Feel the burn.”
Pulled in two directions
For Jackson, it was always supposed to be Hillary. It was supposed to be Hillary even back in 2008, until Barack Obama entered the presidential scene. But even then, when she decided to switch her support to Obama, Jackson told herself that Clinton would be the presumptive nominee the next time around. She would have another chance to vote for a woman then........
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