It’s a sight that is impossible to unsee: a row of sleeping bodies, laid out like so much firewood, and underneath the dirty blankets, the clear outlines of two adults, two small children, and an infant cradled in her mother’s arms. I’ve been in large American cities often enough to become somewhat used to the sight of the homeless (though you are never truly inured), but the homeless families I saw in the streets of Paris during my recent visit there take the misery to another level entirely.
Molly’s Paris apartment is what you would call postage-stamp size: literally as wide as the length of the foldout bed that comes out only for sleep. “What would it be like,” I said to her, as we escaped the winter chill into the glow of her room, “if we could invite that family in here to sleep tonight, if those children could be warm, and if their parents could know that someone felt their suffering and wanted to help?”
Of course, this was not something we could realistically do, but what about those large government buildings, heated with taxpayers’ money, filled by day with bureaucrats, but empty at night? Why not lay out dozens of cots and invite the homeless in for a night of sanctuary? I was most haunted by the pain, especially of the mother, because when your babies suffer, your anguish is magnified tenfold.
Juxtapose this tableau of despair with the outrageous conspicuous consumption that is the annual tradition known as the Academy Awards, where divas and divos parade around in clothes that cost enough to feed entire nations, where the swag bags alone are filled with thousands of dollars of baubles and bling that are most likely carelessly tossed aside after the glittery night.
This year’s ceremony went to a whole new level of ridiculous with the pre-Oscar night tempest over race. Excuse me, people, since when have we reduced that discussion to one that is purely black and white? Where are all the roles and awards for the others who are part of the equation — Asians and Hispanics who are still marginalized in Hollywood? And not only shoved to the side, but actively humiliated, as with that awful joke by Chris Rock that reduced Asians — and Jews — to silent worker bees good at math?
Those three Asian children — one introduced as David Moskowitz — who were paraded as accountants in a visual stereotype — were they and their parents aware that they were the butt of a national joke? Were they compensated for being willing dupes? I hope they got a swag bag, at least. It could probably pay for one semester of college.
The devolution of race relations in this country and the escalation of human suffering around the world are, for me, two of the biggest issues in this election year, one that has been fraught with cantankerous, nasty behavior, and candidates who are more bullies than role models.
I’ve had no interest in any of the debates; there are limits to my tolerance for contention and stalemate, and frankly, none of the candidates from either party has done anything to move the needle on my indifference. Maybe I’m exhausted — like so many Americans — after all these years of deadlock. Maybe I’m finally something I vowed I never would be: cynical.
But let’s be honest, the social, economic, and political climate of this country is bitter and disillusioned. I still believe in the Obama presidency, and I believe history will be kind to his legacy, but man, have we been battered.
And so, at this point, since it looks like we’ll be choosing between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, I have to go with Hillary, though I don’t feel any hint of warm and fuzzy when I think about her candidacy, certainly not the way I felt about Barack Obama and the heady days of his first campaign.
However, after two terms of our first African-American president, it is indeed high time that we elect our first woman to the highest office in the land. In this, we are behind the rest of the world that has had women in the seat of power on virtually every continent but ours: Chancellor Angela Merkel in Germany, President Park Geun-hye in Korea, Prime Minister Erna Solberg in Norway, President Dilma Rousseff in Brazil, Catherine Samba-Panza, interim president of the Central Africa Republic, and Kamla Persad-Bissessar, who served as prime minster of Trinidad and Tobago. That’s quite an impressive lineup of female leadership, so why not us and why not now?
Here’s where I am optimistic: if Hillary Clinton is elected, Donald Trump will not be. And that’s a huge relief in itself. But here’s what can happen: more and more women will enter American politics at all levels. There will be more leaders like Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Senator Barbara Boxer of California — dynamic and powerful women who also happen to be mothers.
There is nothing quite like a mother bear fighting for her cubs, and there is nothing quite like a woman of courage and heart fighting for the underdog. So in spite of myself, I’m jumping onto the Hillary Clinton campaign. She’s a mom and a grandmother, and has a worldview that no other American president has ever had, simply because of her gender. And that’s something I’m willing to rally behind.
