
I didn’t run for office just to win. I didn’t run just for the competition. I sure as heck didn’t run for power. I didn’t even run for the validation of a platform, but the world is validating it for me in horrible, disgusting ways.
I’m but one little voice, and sometimes that voice is speechless. More often than not, I’m speechless because the world around me is deafening. People can’t hear when they’re screaming. The rest of the time, I’m speechless because I’m in deep thought about how to be the difference that we so sorely need right now. And right now, it needs me and a bunch of people similar to me to be the ones screaming.
To this day, almost three months after the world closed, I’m still trying to come up with how I actually feel about it. I don’t have a well-defined opinion because just like in politics, I enjoy the gift I’ve been given to empathize with all sides. But we sure as heck split down the middle politically over this pandemic, didn’t we? I watched my candidacy being validated every time a screen illuminated my face with the newest way Democrats and Republicans could argue over people dying.
The Ahmaud Arbery murder shook me, but as a white man, it can only shake me so much. I don’t have to live with the fear that black men all over the country live with every single time they leave the house. Every. Single. Time. Any white man that says he can empathize with that is unable to comprehend reality. I get the impression I wouldn’t want to truly empathize with their reality anyway. But why did so many people stop trying?
Now the George Floyd murder has America on fire and the same infuriating question had to be answered first, just as it had to be answered for Ahmaud Arbery. Every white person in America, whether they acknowledge it or not, was waiting to hear an answer to the question(s), “What did he do to deserve it? Did he pretend to have a gun, did he resist arrest? What did he do to deserve it?”
How about nothing? Jogging, petty theft, running a red light, simple assault, forgery, or any other crime up to and including felonies does not come with an immediate death sentence. Sometimes you hear that they resisted arrest or tried to run, but has it occurred to anybody that they’re so terrified of the cops and the justice system that their fight or flight instincts are firing a little differently than us white people?
The George Floyd murder was one of the most sickening things I’ve ever seen on video. The aftermath, however, has held a hidden beauty that was markedly absent from his death or what we’re seeing on the streets of Minneapolis and major cities around the country. For the first time in a very long time, both sides of every valley of division finally agree on something.
George Floyd was murdered, and it’s time for change. That change, however, is not only in the area of white cop / black man. That’s what most people are going to say. White people have to do better, right? Cops have to do better. Yes, of course they do. But it’s so much more complex than that. We live in a country that is not inspired by its freedom; we live in a country that is galvanized and enraged and aroused by its division. And since that division comes in so many forms, we can’t escape it.
Look at the division that exists in just this one tragic death. White cop versus black man. White privilege versus black stereotypes. “Thugs” versus “good people.” Upper class (or middle class) versus lower class. Left media versus right media. The “well, he shouldn’t have broken the law” crowd versus the “just because you’re arrested doesn’t mean you should be murdered” crowd.
Look around and really think. Like REALLY think. Stop listening to the senior members of your political party and look around with your own two eyes and put in such deep thought that you force yourself to slide in somebody else’s shoes on EVERY topic that divides us. We do not let freedom and God’s beautiful design inspire us. We let our differences enrage and, sadly, arouse us.
In every conceivable way, we’re all just human beings – flawed, sinful, imperfect, beautiful human beings – and it’s apparent that many of us never learned how to embrace those differences and love our fellow man regardless of them. We’re too in love with the anger and feelings of supremacy that come when the differences are attacked.
Look at what’s still happening with the Coronavirus. If you so much as wear a mask, you’re instantly divided from the people who are angry at the governor. If you are hurt and angry because you see all of these small business owners who rightfully feel wronged by being shut down, you’re instantly divided from the people who think the world should be closed indefinitely.
If you think schools and small businesses and churches should open NOW, you’re questioned about the care you display for your fellow man. If you think schools and small businesses and churches should be shut down until the vaccine arrives, you’re suppressing everybody’s right to live as they see fit.
Look at all the ways we pour gas on the fires burning in all of our division and how our leaders do little to discourage or squash that division.
Black versus white. Hispanics versus white. Citizens versus immigrants. Politicians versus constituents. Wall versus no wall. Rich versus poor. Republican versus Democrat. Man versus woman. Gay versus straight. Pro-life versus pro-choice. Intelligent versus uneducated. Vaccinators versus anti-vax. Rednecks versus city slickers. Corporations versus a living wage. Health care as a right versus health care as a privilege. Fox News versus CNN. Science versus conspiracy theories. Liberal versus conservative. Christians versus Muslims. Christians versus atheists. Christians versus any other religion who differs from them.
Seriously. Those last few? They set me off on a tangent, and I consider myself a believer. The division caused by religion in this country is far more uncompromising than most Christians will ever acknowledge. There is a certain percentage of Christians who constantly act like (and say) they’re being persecuted. By who? Who exactly is taking away your right to believe in your God? Who? Other than the conditions we live in now because of a pandemic, who is trying to take away your ability to go to church as you please? Be honest with yourself and don’t think about that one meme last year that Cousin Bobby shared that said the Muslims were trying to take over with their Sharia law. That’s make believe. Stop it.
But this group of Christians – even if it’s a small percentage – speaks for more Christians than you can even imagine. They’re pretty loud about their perceived persecution. It makes it look like ALL Christians think they’re being persecuted, and it creates tension and division in this country that has no basis in reality. There is so much division at the feet of Christians who believe the world should believe as they do that it baffles me at how blind they can be at their role in the division.
Please don’t read this as presuming I have some sort of anger towards this group of Christians for doing this. I absolutely do not. It’s their right and I’ll protect it until the day I die. But I don’t have to like the division they sow because the only thing it does is negatively highlight the ways we are different.
That’s an important point, though. There is a difference between highlighting our differences and acknowledging them. I can talk to a black man at the grocery store and acknowledge that he is black. My eyes still work for the most part, thankfully. But I don’t have to highlight the fact that he’s black in our conversation. I don’t have to say, “I see you have some All-Purpose Seasoning there. Do all black people like All-Purpose Seasoning?” I can simply talk to him like he’s a human being. See the difference?
Our lives are overrun with all the ways division is highlighted in our lives. On social media, political memes on either side show you exactly how wrong you are to be in your particular party. You can also be shown just how wrong you are if your vision of God or Jesus is different than somebody else’s. Yeah, you see division highlighted in sports, too, but that’s entertainment. That’s like a meme pitting Kanye West against Taylor Swift. If that is dividing the country, we are irreparably divided and cannot be saved.
In the media – and I will defend their right to do this until the United States ceases to exist because they have the right to do it and we have the right to not buy what they are selling – they literally title their articles with division in mind. It can be sickening. But they are NOT the enemy of the people and never will be. If we don’t have the ability to collectively ignore the most divisive voices around us, then it’s our fault if we choose to allow them to divide us. If you don’t like what the media has to say, turn the shit off. It’s really as simple as that.
My point in all of this – and it would be really easy (and long-winded) to highlight dozens of other places where we fan the flames of division – is that there are 330,000,000 people in this country who are each responsible for the division they allow to pollute their lives AND the division they pollute in others. We also have allowed political parties to become the source of the most toxic divisions we see in this country, and we embrace it. Even the black guy / white cop divide can be made political. And there is no way I’m more sick of that than black people.
I ran for office for two primary reasons, to unite a divided country and to fight for the education of ALL children. Both are being validated in very public ways right before our eyes. That doesn’t make me happy; it makes me hope that other leaders and potential leaders will stand up with me and share the message.
I have to fight for education because I can’t sit back and watch our legislature devalue education in North Carolina anymore. We’re 44th in per pupil spending. That’s placing almost no value on our future, and I have two pieces of that future who haven’t even reached school age yet. I won’t sit back and watch them get a piss poor education because our legislators don’t value it for reasons I have yet to fully understand.
Has public education been validated a little here these past three months? I think most parents would say so. I say that even if you’re a charter school or private school fan. That’s okay. It’s your right. They’re no different right now. Education is the most important service we offer, in whatever capacity we offer it. North Carolina needs to step up to that reality.
My campaign, in that regard, has been wholly validated.
I ran unaffiliated because I was absolutely sick to death of the toxic partisanship and the inability to compromise or negotiate and the division it was all causing. This needs very little embellishment or explanation. Democrats versus Republicans is the most pronounced division in this country right now, and it houses a hundred more spawned divisions that diehards use as ammunition to bash, trample, discredit, lambaste, and humiliate the other side, to hell with facts, truth, or reality. There’s not a single soul in Raleigh or Washington fighting for the politically unaffiliated, and it is showing its hideous affects every single day. Our legislative bodies represent political parties, not citizens.
My campaign as an unaffiliated candidate has been indisputably validated.
I will never claim to be the smartest or most professional or most polished or most capable candidate to grace a ballot this November. I won’t be. I won’t be the most creative candidate either, but I can guarantee you my effort at being so will be unmatched because the parties don’t allow for creativity in compromise that crosses party lines. But you’ll have that in me. And you need that in me.
I can also guarantee you that if I somehow win this long shot race that I will do everything in my power every single day to unify the division, to civilize the uncivil, to respect the disrespectful, to breathe truth into the dishonesty, and to build a window of transparency into the ugly, hidden world of politics.
We need to end the division in any and every way possible. We need change in leadership. I have absolutely NOTHING against my opponents in the race for District 26 of the North Carolina House of Representatives. Nothing at all. You won’t hear me say a single bad word about either one. I ran for my own reasons and nothing more. But at a time when we as a country are infected with a virus of division, we need people who hate it with every fiber of their being.
You cannot convince me that we would not be a better country if our leadership – from the president, senators, and representatives right on down to state legislature, county commissioners, sheriffs, mayors, and police chiefs – had a no tolerance policy for toxic, purposeful division. Instead, they divide for sport.
There is division that cannot be avoided – it’s central to being human – but toxic division is a choice. The United States is a country of toxic division. Our leaders could change that. They have clearly made the decision not to do that. Our media made that same decision. The division sells, and that’s more important than any semblance of unity. But what our leaders refuse to acknowledge is that you can’t legislate unity, but you can lead in a way that inspires unity. And when you lead in an attempt to inspire unity, maybe the trickle down means the tough guy white cops don’t have as much hatred for black men.
We have no representation in Raleigh or Washington who hate the division badly enough to make it central to their campaigns or their public service. And I fully expect that it won’t be enough to win this race. But sadly, my message has been validated. And on our current path, it will continue to be validated.
I just hope that validation is not at the expense of a parade of senseless Coronavirus victims. I especially hope it’s not at the expense of any more Georges or Ahmauds.
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