An Open Letter to Barack and Michelle Obama
You don't know me.You don't know us. We are your mothers.
We are the millions of unknown women who dared.
We opposed our family's socially stagnant ideas.
We dared openly to oppose Vietnam while supporting our troops; we openly oppose Iraq and support our troops.
We dared love whom we loved as a statement that we are all one with our Creator. No one can legislate the human heart.
We never called ourselves feminists; you won't find us on any list.In our lives we created a personal United Nations. They are our families. My 38-year-old African American daughter is a 7 year Naval veteran, hospital corpsman. My granddaughter's father's background is German-American.
Watching your acceptance speech she was sobbing. She said, "Please win because I'm so tired of seeing my friends die."-
We lost heart when John and Bobby and Martin were murdered.
We starved so our children could eat.I gave blood once a month to feed my daughter while holding a good job at the University of Illinois Medical Center in Chicago. We are the women who gave today's women their rights.They need to know that the price of freedom is high.
I am anti abortion and pro choice. Why? Because in 1970 I experienced a good friend temporarily dying in the back seat of my car while waiting for "the doctor"- to finish the abortion. I experienced affluent friends going off to Japan and Sweden to get "safe"- and hidden abortions because they had the money.
Having and keeping unwanted or unneeded or dangerous pregnancies does not make one a good mother or even a good woman, nor does it make a woman spiritual. The intent of personal ego run riot stands out behind the smoke screen of holiness. A person's life is only answerable to her Maker and no one has the right to legislate that personal relationship, which is, after all, the most intimate.
We are the women who struggled to get educations. I have a BA in Humanities from Western Illinois University, Macomb. It took me 32 years to achieve that. I received an MA in Counseling Psychology from the University of San Francisco. It took me 2 years to achieve that. At 65 I'm exploring a Ph.D.
We are among the thousands of families who look to you two to carry on a tradition of love and tolerance that we fought for back in the day. Yes, carried on. We didn't start the fight for personal freedom; we and that fight have always been.
I'm a home health care worker for In Home Support Services in Santa Rosa, California. I make $11.20/hr. I call it "working on the front lines."- I work to keep our disabled and elderly at home, independent and comfortable even though our Republican governor would destroy what little security they have.
As a United Health Care West Union member I fight to revive the labor movement, which my grandfather struggled to institute. A Ukrainian immigrant, he helped start the Pocket Makers' Union, a part of the Tailor's Union, back in the early part of the 20th Century. There were 6 children, little or no food, and no help from a smug materialistic, pseudo-spiritual society, which believed, and still does, that the rich and powerful were blessed by God and that is why they were rich and powerful. The poor were not blessed; they were sinful trash unloved by God and that is why they were poor and powerless. We can thank the Pilgrim founders for that philosophy.
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