The Greatest Storyteller
You know how you wake up and you’re…you know, Black? And how your entire life, this person has been telling you this grand ole story. Let’s call this melanin-deficient person, “America.” Yeah. So all your life, this dude America has been telling you how dope he is. How he’s the land of the free and home of the brave, where everyone has the opportunity at the “American Dream” and you’re just sitting there like, “I don’t know, America. Sounds like bullshit to me.” And he’s like, “No, you can literally do whatever you want, be whoever you want, worship whatever God you want, love whoever you want and I’ll put institutions in place to make sure EVERYONE thrives. Everyone!” And then like…you know, BOOKS. And then you crack a few open, flip through and ask, “Um, so are they talking about someone else, America? Cause it sure seems like — “ and before you can finish, he continues to tell his story.
You try to pay attention but your kids are hungry and you’ve got nothing in your pantry because you haven’t worked in 9 months. You really wanna listen but Sallie Mae (Or Navient or whatever the hell they’re calling themselves today) keeps blowin’ up your phone. You sit closer, hoping that’ll help but your landlord is BANGING on your door because the eviction moratorium is about to expire and you and your kids may not have anywhere to live. But America just keeps on telling his story. He doesn’t finish it though. He’s slick. It’s one of those choose your own ending kind of jawns, he says. We get to continue the rest of the story, he says. And then he starts talking about this thing called VOTING and how it’s like he’s giving us the power to tell the rest of the story. But it’s weird because you distinctly remember reading about this guy…who was it again? Oh yeah, John Lewis. You remember reading about him in one of those books and you’re just like, “I mean…..is it REALLY choose your own ending, America? Do you really care about everyone’s vote?” And he’s like, “Of course! What would make you say that?” And then one of your kids cuts on the TV and you see a bunch of people who look like America, attempting to throw out the votes of millions of people. Black, white, brown people in several states across this country and then you stop and realize: Why am I listening to his story?
Voting isn’t simply our opportunity to change the narrative. It’s our opportunity to write our own story. Not one dictated to us by people who believe in a mythological place where Unicorns shit Skittles. But our story. Voting gives us the opportunity to write a story about all of us. The good, the bad, the ugly, the disturbing, the heartbreaking but eventually…the beauty, the hope, the triumph.
I vote because I’m tired of being told a story about a place I’ve never seen. Aren’t you?
