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Tuesday, May 06, 2008

A Primary Day Anecdote
Posted by Jill | 6:46 AM
My workplace is on the campus of what used to be a sprawling psychiatric hospital complex. Most of the buildings are empty now, with climbing plants winding their way around and through the missing windows and around the heavy metal screens that once reinforced them. When deinstitutionalization become the preferred mode of dealing with psychiatric patients after the development of Thorazine, many of the buildings became useless. I'm told that some of the property has been sold and that there have long been plans for mixed-use development including an active adult community, but because of the asbestos issues in many of the buildings, they still stand empty.

The campus is a far cry from the manicured spaces with fountains and strategically-placed fruit trees that you see in suburban office parks, and there is a strange aura surrounding the place, as if the screams of the mad became trapped in these buildings, unable to escape even many decades later. But it provides plenty of space for lunchtime walks on spring days.

One day as I was out for my mid-day walk I was stopped by a woman who works in the same building. She said she was a breast cancer survivor and her doctor told her she should get more exercise, and could she walk with me sometime? So we've been walking together most days since.

She is from Nigeria, and she is fascinating. She's told me of the history of her family and that of her husband, with information about the tribal chiefs and warlords who were their ancestors dating back to the 1600's. I'm trying to convince her to write this all down, because while her very much American kids don't care about that now, they probably will years from now.

Last week she went for her citizenship interview, and now all she has to do is be sworn in and she will be able to vote this fall. I told her I am supporting Barack Obama, which surprised her, and then she announced that she's supporting Hillary Clinton. I asked her to explain what it is about Hillary that she supports, because I am trying to find a way to justify casting a vote for her if, as expected, today's primary is a split, this madness goes on into June, and she manages to wrangle this nomination. So far we have a promise to obliterate Iran, support of John McCain's lamebrained gas tax holiday, and a sense that God Himself has blessed her with $100 million. All of this is making a vote for Hillary Clinton seem more like a vote for George W. Bush than for any kind of progressive values.

My new friend didn't convince me, but it struck me that if there were any sanity to this process, the black immigrant new citizen who's the descendant of tribal leaders supporting the white woman and the middle-aged white woman who's descended from shtetl peasants supporting the black guy would be a microcosm of the strength and diversity of this party.

But alas, there is no sanity once you get outside a springtime walk in the grounds of an old psych hospital.

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