in 2000, i voted for al gore. i was a committed democrat, didn't ask many questions, knew he was better than the alternative.

but i'd also sometimes spar with a colleague (i worked for morgan stanley at the time). we'd talk, joke even, about our decisions. he was squarely in favor of bush ii. i thought it was fun to debate but not about ... real life stakes.

in 2000, i wasn't so much "closeted" as much as i'd say i still very much believed the church's doctrines regarding god, sin, sexuality; i was the director of new spirit of penn gospel choir. i was a musician for a blackpentecostal church in west philly (the bottom!)

so in 2000, i proudly voted democrat. but wasn't too bothered bush ii won. because faith based initiatives. because even though he was a republican, it didn't seem that it would be too horrible. we survived the Y2K bug, we could survive anything.

this is really how i thought.

but a curious thing happened after 2000. i began to really be questioned about a lot of shit. and really began to listen, or be unsettled by it all.

in 2000 i went on that date black friday the same year as the election, just a few weeks later actually, with the same dude i went out with the year before.

in 1999, we both talked about how we were just tryna "get the gay out of our system." but in 2000, he asked me, "you still think it's sinful?"

and that question was enough for me to be like ... ?hmm. what? some people don't think being gay is a sin?" it was literally something i'd never thought before. this was ouccuring at the SAME TIME dude officially won the but was still fighting because of florida and judges.

so on multiple levels - the interpersonal and the political - i was at least forced to confront the reality that things weren't necessarily as easy as i presumed. i began to become really uncomfortable.

and between 2000 and, say, 2003, i ended up leaving the gospel choir, i got kicked out of the engineering program, i began to read a lot more that interrogated doctrines about sin and sexuality by using yahoo! to search for shit.

i also began taking classes in the school of education that focused on urban education; learned a lot about educational inequality, a LOT. i took a course in media studies called minorities in the media. it made me confront race, gender, class, and sexuality. head on.

i'd written my senior thesis about racism in the united states and canada, how in both places, black kids begin to lag behind other racial groups at the same time and it could not be attributed to "parental involvement" but, you guessed it, structural racism.

i'd learned a lot about charter schools too. i volunteered for two of them for the education classes i took. talked a lot with teachers. talked a lot with professors. learned about how terrible, even then, they were. this is important for later.

so by the end of 2003, i'd began coming out the closet in earnest, i began to at least have less anxiety about sexuality being sinful, though i was still a musician for a church in philadelphia. but i also had a lot more critical awareness of structural harm.

so by 2004, i'm still very much a democrat but this time, bush ii is running on "family values" and kerry is running on ... i don't even remember what tf. i was bored with kerry but i knew family values was a racist and homophobic dogwhistle. but but but ...

folks at my blackpentecostal church were REALLY ENAMORED with bush ii. (not all, but more than enough.) they cited his faith based initiatives, which gave hella churches money for "civic engagement" (which were things that were actually terrible for lots of communities).

but more than faith based initiatives, they were REALLY ENAMORED with the idea of "family values" and the marriage amendment. like, totally enamored with it. and i was heated. because though i wasn't at this point in the closet, i wasn't out either.

i knew that what folks were saying was WRONG but i ain't wanna out myself. but the week before the election, instead of thursday night church service (an elephant never forgets anything and neither do i, apparently), the pastor held a prayer "for the election..."

and the ministers that lead the prayer were very clear, without using his name, that we were supposed to vote for bush ii. "we pray, lord, that we recognize the need to honor and protect the family!" and other bullshit like that. i was heated.

i remember looking around and at least *two* of the members were also furrowing their brows and looked at me and we were all like, nah......

next day i emailed the pastor, heated. said that since the church is a 501c3 and we can't take political positions and it seemed very much like the prayer took a political position, that i'd be more than happy to pass out literature after service sunday to offer an alternative.

and, well, she couldn't say no because........i was right. so that sunday, it was announced that i would be in the basement handing out literature about the election after service.

MEMBERS ARGUED WITH ME about the shit. "YOU DON'T THINK PROTECTING THE FAMILY IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN HEALTHCARE?"

um. tf? no, i don't. i actually had to say, "what family will you be protecting if you don't ... have healthcare, or good educational opportunities...?"

it was a mess.

OH, but i gotta go back.

the DNC that year featured a senator from illinois as a speaker. barack obama.

i knew i ain't like that dude based on two things he said in his lil speech:

1 - black kids should be able to learn without being told they're "acting white"

2 - there is no black america or white america, only the united states of america.

the first, about acting white, is a racist liberal dogwhistle. it is. don't argue with me about it.

the second is ... american exceptionalism, false, and also, about saying, look yall, i'm a safe, respectable one.

i was good on both. but i ain't really care because who is he?

that's important for later.

SO...the day of the 2004 election, we had choir rehearsal.

this one dude walks in, pumps his fist, says, "today i made a vote for the family! i voted for bush!"

i almost lost my shit.

because how is this closeted ass muth...

sorry. lemme move on.

2004 was when i was like ....................... hm.

2004 was when i began to say not only hmmmm about the church and sexuality, but just its political positions *in general* ... at least the churches of which i was a part. i was really, quite deeply, unsettled by it all.

between 2004 and 2008 i went to seminary, stopped going to church, stopped preaching, was a chaplain for a prison, became something like a prison abolitionist (without the language initially), came all the way out, became agnostic, blah blah blah.

so when 2007 rolls around and the senator from illinois is beginning to make some noise, i'm like, well no, i'll vote for hillary because hillary is against charter schools and she's for single payer health insurance and he's in favor of charter schools ... so no.

and, also, that terrible 2004 speech. no no no. i'll vote for hillary.

i was, see, still very much a democrat. a wary one. a weary one. but i still thought the two party system, in 2007, could deliver something like justice.

EL OH EFFING EL.

anyway, january rolls around and BHO is stumping telling black folks to stop feeding their black children popeyes for breakfast.

and i was like, oh no, i'm good on him.

and then jeremiah wright and that bullshit of how he's just as racist as his racist grandmama ...

and i was like, oh hell no i'm good on him.

and .......

something happened. as he began to really get a lot of traction, i not only felt, hm.....this ain't right, i felt, hmmmmmm, the democrats ain't really that good *in general* ... because if we're supposed to overlook this elitist classist bullshit, then what?

so...2008 is the first year i decided to vote green party. because i refused to vote for BHO, not with all the shit he said that was so clearly accommodationist.

but folks were still hopeful. he had a mandate because of the house and senate.

what he do? larry summers. lolol

2008 is when i was like, i'm good. on all of this. because these are, at best, micro-incremental moves to keep the necessarily racist, classist, violent political economy intact.

it was the first time, during the first four of his administration, that it was clear that the position itself is violent.

but what was, and continues to be, disheartening? the way we're not allowed to critique him. or the violence that he inflicted globally. and ... that's sad. but it says something about the way we conceive power and desires for proximity to it.

ALL that to say, my political journey went from the democrats are great! to fuck this two party system! ... and i'm happy that it did. because more is required. more is necessary. a way that does not accept violence as the shit that constitutes our relations is urgent.

i'm not new to critiques of charter schools or your favorite two year teaching in "urban schools" program or banking or gerrymandering. leftists aren't somehow supporting the right. leftists want real change.

and the uprisings we're seeing *today*, that began at least since 2014, are at least in part because of the inability of the years 2008-2016 to do anything in the service of justice and alleviating harm.

anyway. that was a long rant about everything and nothing. i'm tired of the bullshit we have to endure. we need otherwise than this.

fin.