Women’s March 2018: This is our time – to vote, to be elected and unafraid!

by Lin Robertson

Its 2018, a new year, but for who? Us dreamers, nasty girls and involuntary immigrant Black folk expected to build a nation on our backs, still without equal pay, often without equal rights, or – put simply – with no “right to happiness,” may still be waiting for emancipation. Some may even believe that the new slaves today are only those with a Spanish accent, paid off to just hush about years of harassment on the job or kept restrained with the real “fake news” chain of lies that suggests that racism today is OK.

Last year, one day after an inauguration, we showed up and marched with a rage that refused to go away quietly. As was evident all over the world even back then, we chose to resist, and demand change.

Who are we? All of us! We are sisters and brothers in church, at school, at work, within the LBGTQ community, at Black Lives Matter rallies, among men and women wearing pink hats in solidarity, and with the undocumented risking deportation from the very streets where we continue to march.

If you are black, white, brown, male, female, or just simply have a heart, then please recognize the obvious: This is our time, not just to vote but also to be elected. Stand up! Lead! Refuse to hide in the shadows as if we are afraid to be hunted, cuffed and ultimately forced to disappear as if we were just mere stray dogs. We belong here. It’s our world. March on to fight for it.

And come election day, remember that we are all dreamers. Don’t turn your back on those who are still where you too might have once started from: an “alien” fear-filled place full of indignation and with little hope of ever being treated fairly.

November is also the deadline for pulling the lever in the voting booth to remove those who believe universal health care is not one of our rights, who choose again to poison the water we drink and the air we breathe, who are quick to bend over for the NRA despite citizens being gunned down every day, and who systematically seek to disempower even our ability to take a knee.

We all have a dream. Let’s make it real, today!

The Bastard Child

When I walked into your yard, Green Card Man,

I tried hard not to be different.

Wore my obedient yellow-lite tie,

The grey suit,

The brief case

I got from Sam-I-Am,

And Zues,

But

You saw my face with blind eyes,

Became deaf,

Rigid,

Uncomfortable

With my dreadful locks,

Sewn above that black-eyed dot.

Let me in!

Let me in!

I want to win,

Like you, White Man

In blue ‘n

Red stripes

Rollin’ down

The back of your thigh.

You crossed me out

With your tight glimpse,

Your limp nudge,

Like a mistake.

When I walked into your yard, Green Card Man

I was just you

In reverse.

Poem by Lin Robertson, Feb. 1, 1995

Lin Robertson began her career by launching the Aruba Foreign Investment Agency in her native Aruba, a Caribbean island nation off the coast of Venezuela. Coming to California in 1998, she worked with the San Jose Office of Equality Assurance and in 2005 founded The Labor Compliance Managers, where she is managing director. She is also senior producer for International Media TV. Lin can be reached at [email protected].

“San Francisco’s African-American Board of Supervisors President and acting Mayor London Breed kicked off her run for mayor of San Francisco on Jan. 17, 2018, at the Emporium in San Francisco,” writes videographer Johnnie Burrell of International Media TV, adding, www.internationalmediatv.com will be running with her. Tune in!