Cannot at Seven

Whenever I say to her, “Never
Let me hear you say
You cannot do something,”
I wait for her to roll her eyes.
But she does not roll her eyes.
She veers around her contrariness,
Restates her argument
To satisfy my command,
As if she understands its logic.
The ancestors are looming behind me
And she has already calculated the futility
Of turning to outrun them.

Did we come to our census or did TV guide?

“Can you forgive a pig-headed old fool who’s had no eyes to see with and no ears to hear with all these years?”
- Alastair Sim’s Scrooge

To the casual stalker who had observed me during the past eighteen months, it may have appeared that I’d been caught up in the wave of hope that crashed onto the shores of America last Tuesday night. All this week, I am buoyed up, tumbling giddily above the Bloated and the Raving, all those anchored by their fears and malediction, their numbers dwindling even as they retrench and plan to attack anew. So you might be surprised to learn that I am not personally responsible for the outcome of the election. Sure, I did my part, speaking with friends and family who might be swayed by my judgment. And of course, I voted early in the day. But this time, I didn’t march in the street with sign held high, enjoying and enduring the comments from passing drivers (an optimistic “throw the bums out of office!” here, an ill-perceived “get a life” there). I knew that, without my influence, Barack Obama would be our President-elect. The electorate has been changing. America is more diverse, and more tolerant, than it was a generation ago, and we are gradually ticking off ways to recognize this. Today, our representative government represents our diversity a bit more fairly, even, quips the Cynic, in the administration of George W. Bush. Ignoring any question of motive – noble, practical, or, continues the Cynic, dishonest – Bush appointed a more diverse group to top jobs than any U.S. President before him. Now we’ve come a long way since 1869, when the first African Americans were elected to Congress, when Hiram Rhodes Revels filled the Senate seat vacated by Confederate President Jefferson Davis and Joseph H. Rainey became the first black member of the House of Representatives. *

But the real reason I was certain of the outcome of this election was that it had been foretold, or even made possible, by televised fiction. With the election of David Palmer, the first African American President on the series 24 back in season two, the voting finger of America has been guided by TV. Earlier this year, actor Dennis Haysbert said, “If anything, my portrayal of David Palmer, I think, may have helped open the eyes of the American people. And I mean the American people from across the board -- from the poorest to the richest, every color and creed, every religious base -- to prove the possibility there could be an African-American president, a female president, any type of president that puts the people first.”

And so, a toast to Television…thank you for lighting the way once again.


* In 1868, John W. Menard was elected to fill an unexpired term, but was never seated in Congress due to a challenge of his election.