i voted today. busiest day i had in a long time, so i opted to vote rather than to eat. thankfully, at work there were bagels and cream cheese leftover from a meeting before i was there (i hear a grandmother of my neighbourhood saying, "the Looord will provide, sugar).
i was pretty miffed because i wasn't given an "i voted" sticker. nor did i see any around. but that's my ego being hurt, and perhaps that is a good thing. in fact, i know that is a good thing. so many of the things we do, whether they are good or bad things, are actually motivated by our egos, and i am finding it helpful to find myself in situations where i realize that's really what it was about...
beyond my sticker aside, there was something else i noticed, perhaps more disturbing than the first. just something i noticed, and later it made me think about why it felt uncomfortable for me:
all of the poll workers were black (i live in a predominantly black neighbourhood, so that seemed more than normal to me). the other people there voting at the time were black. again, didn't even blip my radar.
until i noticed the other grouping there. you see, there were the poll workers, the voters (me being the only white-skinned person but i'm used to that, i'm a definite minority in my neighbourhood). the third group were the poll challengers.
do you know what a poll challenger is? a poll challenger (two each are allowed per polling station for republicans and democrats) is basically looking over the shoulder of the poll worker to ensure they're doing their job right, to ensure that no fraud or improper practice is going on either by workers or voters. in the past, the improper practice was often being done by the Challenger, not the worker or voter. improper and often illegal things that basically boiled down to pressuring the people coming in wanting to freely vote. but that's another story altogether.
the thing is, the challengers are there to make sure the others (workers and voters) are keeping in line. it's an interesting power comment, when you think about it. especially when you voted where i did. you see, aside from me, all the voters and all the workers were black.
all the challengers were white.
