Back in Action

by Donna Schoenkopf

I got back in action last Monday. It felt good.

It’s always a little hard moving my big fat butt out of bed, dressing appropriately, getting my mind-set in order, and otherwise girding my loins for the fray, but I have been in the activist business long enough to know that I will feel great once I get going.

“How long HAVE you been in the activist business, Donna?” you ask.

“Ever since my sainted mother rocked me in the rocking chair singing ‘Lilac Trees’ when I was but a babe,” I answer.

If you were to hear the “Lilac Trees” lyrics today you would blush with uneasiness. Words like pickaninny and mammy pepper the song. But they are words that were not meant in a derogatory way long ago when my grandmother sang it to my mother. They are more touchy than the word negro, and negro itself seems vaguely uncomfortable, but remember, negro was used by Martin Luther King himself.

Times change. We all have begun to realize that words are very, very important. Remember the words Mexican, then Hispanic, and now Latino and Chicano? Each time words change we come closer to the the Truth. Whoever names the thing has the power.

(Is that why I resent the English Only movement? To me it discounts the value of other languages and creates a caste system.)

But I digress.

When my mother sang me that sweet old song about racial intolerance and motherly love I cried every single time.

I vowed I would not, NOT! be part of the world of hatred and discrimination.

So when the time came, I marched and sang and got arrested and carried signs and went door-to-door for candidates and registered voters and joined clubs and groups and wrote letters and gave money and voted.

It’s paid off in a number of ways. I’ve made friends, soul mates, really. I’ve not felt so alone in my beliefs. And being part of something good makes me think of the world as being a good place. Or at least a place that is heading in that direction.

I see changes as the result of people’s efforts in doing the right thing.

Changes like civil rights laws being enacted and becoming so much a part of our society that even though there ARE racists still around, no one (or hardly anyone) says out loud that they hate certain groups, and little by little, more and more groups are assimilating into one great big happy family.

Changes have given peace groups more legitimacy, so that there is a BIT of hesitation on the part of America before jumping into war and sometimes SOME wars are looked on as not only unnecessary, but downright wrong.

People are starting to think in environmental terms so that now almost everyone knows how pollution and waste and “bad practices” can screw up the planet.

And economic justice is beginning to percolate into the heads of people. Most people think it is wrong to have a few people making 300 to 400 times as much as the average guy.

Changes are happening. I am heartened.

So on Monday I put on my activist hat and went out again after a long time (three years) of not carrying a sign.

What happened to get me back into action? I got an e-mail from the president of the Democratic Club here in Pottawatomie County. She is a dynamo. (She almost singlehandedly put together our first annual St. Patrick’s Day Fundraiser, which was a whole bunch-o-fun with candidates telling Irish stories and jokes and Irish food and Irish step dancers. Everyone had a great time.)

She wrote in her e-mail that Representative Mary Fallin would be kicking off her gubernatorial campaign right here in Tecumseh, Oklahoma (her old stomping grounds) and would be at the Tecumseh City Hall at 8:30 am the following Monday.

Where’s the apostrophe?

Now this is the Mary Fallin who falls into the same category as Oklahoma Senators James Inhofe and Tom Coburn. All three of them are environmental naysayers. Never saw a war they didn’t like. Hate the government. (I have always wondered how people who are IN the government can HATE the government.) They love THEIR Christian God. Hate homosexuals, trouble makers and “illegal immigrants.”

AND, ladies and gentlemen, Mary Fallin was one of the Republicans standing on the balcony overlooking the Tea Baggers who were demonstrating next to the Capitol Building when the healthcare reform debate was going on. You remember them ... Obama painted hideously as The Joker, red slash mouth grinning. Signs of pure hatred. Screaming. Spitting. Cursing. A real “patriotic” bunch. Well, our girl Mary held one end of the Don’t Tread on Me flag she had gotten from one of her admirers below. She stood on that balcony and urged on that roiling mob of hate, calling them patriots. She saw in that crowd, her people. It was sickening.

And then she said, on the record, that she hadn’t seen ANY signs that were derogatory or inflammatory, nor had she seen any of her compatriots doing anything unseemly to anyone.

Liar, liar, pants on fire, Mary.

The idea of her going onward and upward in politics makes me want to hold a sign.

I sat there reading that e-mail. “I could make a sign about her egging on the Tea Baggers!” I thought.

Hmmmmmmmm.

No.

I wanted something that wasn’t hateful. I wanted something positive. Something GOOD. Something, well ... nice.

“I know!” I said out loud.

And I got some bright yellow posterboard and made a sign which read, “Thank You, President Obama!” That’s it. Nothing else.

Perfect.

That night I set my alarm for six but was up the next morning before it went off. A little grumpy, I must admit. I have gotten used to getting up when I want to get up and this commitment was a bit rankling.

But I got my sorry ass out of bed, made the coffee, and began to feel happy. I whistled a little tune as I dressed. I watched Morning Joe, which got me pissed off again, which is always good for my activist sentiments. I climbed into my car at 7:45 am and skedaddled down to the main street, named Broadway Street, and parked behind the City Hall. I left my purse and stuff in the car, grabbed my sign, and headed for the front of the building.

Donna and her sign

Tecumseh is just like Mayberry. It has about five or six blocks of “town” stuff, like the post office and City Hall. A few restaurants, a gas station or two, a convenience store and other stuff. It used to be shabby and depressing but a couple, whose name I have forgotten, bought up a bunch of boarded up buildings and put in sweet little businesses. It’s really cute. Yeah. Cute.

I got to the front of the building and there I stood with my sign. Now, I know how most Oklahomans feel about people with signs. They are opposed to them. It is seen as a social faux pas. Something like being too loud or making waves or not being polite. People with signs are usually considered to be “outside agitators.” I fit nicely into this category and was happy to oblige.

It was a bit too early for most people to have gotten to Mary’s get-together. But people were coming up to pay their utility bills or their traffic tickets. I guess about one person every couple of minutes. They would eye my sign and look away. Then I would say, “Good morning!” with a big smile, as though I didn’t even HAVE a sign in my hands, and being nice and polite, people would say good morning back. With a few exceptions.

Exceptions:

One middle-aged woman said, “Why are you thanking HIM? For the healthcare bill?” When I replied, “Yes.” She harumphed her way into the building.

I loved it.

A twenty-something black woman said while reading my sign, “Oh, did Obama do something right?” And I replied, “Yeah. Everything.” And then she beamed and said, “I’m with you!” and climbed into her car. I guess she thought I was being sarcastic.

A thirty-something white guy, baseball cap, tee shirt, jeans, said, “Where are the rest of your pals?” I replied, “They’re not here today.” He said, “Are they working? That’s what YOU should be doing.” And I replied, “I’m retired and I worked for a long, long time.”

He smirked his way into the building.

A woman my age got slowly out of a car and painfully walked up the steps. As she passed she said, “I’m with you. I’m going in to make a statement at Fallin’s meeting.” I wished her well. She said she had just gotten out of surgery but that she was so mad at Mary for being hateful that day of the health care vote that she had to come.

She slowly, painfully, walked into the building.

A guy my age, with a camera, walked up to me.

“Where are you from?” he asked.

I knew he thought I was an Outside Agitator. I didn’t know quite what to say. I finally said, “I graduated from Shawnee High.”

He barked, “Not where you graduated from! Where are you FROM?”

I got the drift.

“Four miles south of Tecumseh.”

That seemed to assuage him a bit. But he was still gruff and barky and suspicious. Eventually he told me he was a reporter for the small local paper and I told him that I knew it was a conservative paper but that it was a very fair paper. He beamed. I told him my daughter was a reporter. An irreverent one. He beamed some more. He finally said that outsiders often came to these things to stir up trouble.

(I KNEW it!!!)

Anyway, we talked a bit and went our separate ways.

Mary finally got out of her car and she and her handsome aide had their pictures taken by several news people and then they whisked by me and I said, “Good morning!” And she turned around as though she had JUST seen me and said, “Good morning. Thank you for coming out.” And I said, “Thank you for thanking me.” And off she swept.

I left a little while later. Drove home, had some lunch, put my feet up, and felt damn good. I always do.

And today I had several e-mails telling me that my picture was in the paper and there wasn’t a one of Mary Fallin.

What??

I had no idea anyone had taken my picture. Ha! It had to be that cranky old reporter.

Why that old curmudgeon.

He liked me.

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