I’m embarrassed to admit that until five years ago or so, I considered myself rather apolitical. I voted, tried to stay informed of issues in my community, but I didn’t feel a connection or passion for our government, good or bad. I wasn’t raised in an overly political family, I remember my parents voting when I was younger, but we didn’t discuss politics around the dinner table. Nor did we have cable, so while they regularly watched the nightly news, it wasn’t something we watched as a family. While they were actively involved with the local PTA during a teacher strike including hosting gatherings at our home, that’s about the only overtly political act I recall from my childhood. As an adult, I expect that the apathy or disconnect is rooted in privilege, as I am white, middle-class, married to a dude, and have always had access to the healthcare I need. Sure my family didn’t have a lot of money growing up, and M and I were quite poor early in our marriage, but I’ve had the means with which to make stuff happen for myself, which is also a form of privilege. So let me say that up front…I’ve been inordinately lucky in a multitude of ways and I haven’t been as active and engaged in our political processes as I should have been. But in 2013, that all changed.
We lived in Colorado and I worked for the local hospital. I led a public health program, supervising three different coalitions focused on reducing the incidence of chronic disease through healthy eating and active living. None of these coalitions focused on educating the public, all three were focused on environmental, policy and systems change, which meant that rather than tell people to eat more fruits and vegetables for example, we worked with the city government and community partners to ensure that all residents, but most especially those that were disadvantaged, had access to fresh, affordable, healthy foods. One of those three coalitions worked specifically in eight low-income neighborhoods in Fort Collins, neighborhoods that were primarily mobile home parks inhabited by Hispanic residents who were undocumented. It was my first time working hands-on with this community and even though they spoke very little English and I spoke even less Spanish, they taught me more about what’s wrong with our immigration system than any class I could’ve taken. I’ll never forget working with my colleague who coordinated this coalition to help a family who’s home became uninhabitable after the floods in Sept. 2013. The family had just brought home a newborn, and the weather significantly damaged their house. The family was afraid to ask for help, as being undocumented left them extremely vulnerable. E, my colleague, was determined to help. He worked his connections, I helped him behind the scenes. Through Colorado State University, he was able to secure someone who helped repair the family’s home, fixing the roof and windows, making it safe for the family to reside there once again. The family had nowhere else to go, they would have lived in that dangerous and inadequate shelter if we hadn’t stepped in. It put a human face on the immigration debate, and the esoteric conversations in the news suddenly had a face. All of the residents I met through my work with that particular coalition were kind, generous, hard-working folks who just wanted to provide a safe, stable home for their families. Something we all want. Most left incredibly dangerous situations to come here, and I genuinely believe that our community was better for having them be a part of it.
As part of that work with those three coalitions, I also was engaged with affordable housing initiatives, as over-priced rent/mortgages was a key challenge in Fort Collins. I learned about urban renewal and redlining, how our government effectively stole the homes of our African-American neighbors under the guise of “development” or “progress”. As these neighborhoods were cleared to make room for interstates or arenas, those residents often couldn’t purchase homes in other parts of town, most of the time because white residents didn’t want them there. Many of those folks went from being homeowners, living in what we now would call a mixed-use neighborhood with residents of multiple income levels, shops, churches, and other small businesses, to living in projects where their families stayed for decades. Learning how our government had harmed these communities, harmed these residents, was transformative. Especially when you consider how much homeownership can be a mechanism for building wealth. And how many residents were cut out of this mechanism deliberately by their own government. Racist lending policies by banks only contributed to this problem. This article from Roanoke, VA is a good starting point if urban renewal is an unfamiliar concept. Deepening my understanding of how our government actively harmed and dismantled entire neighborhoods, and how racist community development policies wiped out the wealth of African-Americans gave me a much different perspective on the “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” mentality I hear so often from Republicans. It’s hard to pull yourself up when your government took your boots.
Also while working with these coalitions, I got acquainted with the concept of health equity, or rather health inequity, as when considering how low income residents are disadvantaged by the lack of adequate health insurance for example. Even though I spent considerable time working in health care, and had even sat across from patients who were making hard decisions about which medications to take and how to put food on the table, it was in stepping back from the issue that I better understood how our current medical/healthcare system actually harms people. This was also in the early days of the Affordable Care Act and many people in public health and healthcare were energized by some of the provisions included within it. Getting more people insured benefited everyone, as not only would the newly insured benefit from increased access to care, but this would also reduce the amount of uncompensated care provided by hospitals. The birth control mandate meant that every woman, no matter where she worked, would have access to the prescriptions she needed. Community benefit meant that hospitals would be responsible for the health of the entire community, not just the patients that walked through their doors. “Prevention” became more than a buzzword, as many more organizations had an investment in keeping people healthy versus profiting from illness. For the first time, we had real, tangible tools with which to address health inequities and the collectively we really started moving the needle. The Affordable Care Act and my work with disadvantaged communities also forced me to think through my own personal thoughts about access to healthcare. I realized that my personal belief is that healthcare is a right that should be afforded to everyone. No person living in this country should go bankrupt because of a diagnosis, or not be able to take medications prescribed to them by their physician because they can’t afford them. People should be able to walk through the doors of any hospital and receive treatment, the same treatment regardless of their station in life. Currently, we have tremendous disparities in health, particularly along racial and income lines. Disparities such as residents living on the same road ten miles apart having life expectancies that differ by 15 years. Disparities such as African-American women having low-birth-weight babies at exponentially higher rates than white women, even when controlled for education and income. I personally believe the government has a responsibility to actively resolve these disparities.
The health equity rabbit hole led to an environmental one, as many lower income folks live in areas with poor air and water quality, they are the ones who live next to toxic waste sites. For example, living in an area with chronically poor air quality leads to higher incidences of respiratory infections and chronic lung conditions such as asthma. I do think the government has a responsibility to understand environmental risks and to protect residents from harm. When residents live next to polluting factories, and the government loosens regulations on those factories, the government is contributing to the harm of its citizens. And this is setting aside how these same residents being uninsured or underinsured when it comes to healthcare further exacerbates any of these conditions. In addition, I think public lands are vitally important, as is protecting sacred Native American sites and other areas of cultural significance. Considering the great harm white settlers inflicted on Native Americans, the lands that were stolen from them, the genocide that occured, the very least we can do now is honor and protect the sacred lands. I don’t think a company’s desire to mine resources from public lands supersedes the public’s interest in those lands. The earth is not a renewable resource. There is plenty of research that tells us climate change is real, that we are headed towards a point-of-no-return when it comes to the health of our planet. Republican legislators, including those governing states that stand to be directly harmed by rising seas, ban the use of the term “climate change”, prevent research, dismantle committees. Only one political party takes this threat seriously and is willing to take any steps to address it.
More recently, I’ve learned that in certain states it’s still within the law to fire someone from their job if they are gay. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 has never been amended to include gender identity and sexual orientation, despite many years of efforts. The Justice Department under the Trump Administration has rolled back previous more inclusive rulings by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, stating that they were legally meritless. At the state level, protections vary widely from some states like mine (Illinois) outright prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity, to two states going so far as to prevent local governments from establishing such nondiscrimination laws (Arkansas and Tennessee). Instituting protections at the federal level would ensure that all LGBT citizens are protected from employment discrimination, no matter where they reside.
Relatedly, I learned about how the Reagan administration not only didn’t assist with the AIDS epidemic as soon as it was clear that something was happening, but by actively not getting involved, thousands and thousands more people died. We were four years into the epidemic before the president even said the word aloud in public. Recently, I watched as a baker in Colorado went to court, repeatedly, to get permission and approval to discriminate against his customers. No, I genuinely don’t care what anyone’s religious beliefs say about gay marriage. Either a baker bakes wedding cakes or they don’t. This is no different than the soda fountains in the fifties that wouldn’t serve black people. Many of those business owners also tried to hide behind religion while they discriminated against their neighbors. A business either serves everyone soda or they serve no one soda. That many republicans went to bat for this baker is horrifying. This is not a government that is of, for, and by the people. More seriously than a baker not baking cakes, there are tremendous health disparities that accompany being transgender in particular. People who are trans are routinely denied healthcare, are discriminated against when receiving care, and most crushingly, commit suicide at much higher rates than the rest of the population. A government that mocks this community by making outrageous “bathroom laws” contributes to the pain endured.
With regards to gun violence, only one political party is even willing to discuss or consider policy solutions to this uniquely American problem. Republican politicians have allowed themselves to be held hostage by the NRA and republican citizens have not applied enough pressure to change this. Most Americans are in favor of public policy changes to address gun violence, but because of republican legislators, the CDC can’t even study it. So any policy changes we discuss aren’t rooted in research or best practice. Although at this point, I’m personally in favor of doing something, anything to prevent more kiddos from dying at school or more women being shot by their romantic partners. But I would love to see the CDC be able to address this as they do most any other public health problem, with research and the identification of best practices.
Lastly, abortion. To start, no one is pro-abortion. Literally no one. I saw a headline this morning in a St. Louis paper that mentioned “Abortion Activists”. This term is false. Abortion activists do not exist. Pro-choice activists do, and the language is important. Fundamentally, I believe a woman should have full and complete autonomy over her body, and this includes when and if to have a family. But particularly in this country, in this moment in time, this is even more critical. Presently, fatherhood in our society is optional. A man can get a women pregnant tomorrow and walk out the door, never to be seen again. The legal mechanisms for women to get child support are often beyond the means of low-income women, and that’s even if the father would or could pay. The state of our health care system is such that a woman may not be able afford to have a child, or to raise the child. She might have a job where she can’t get the time off to go to doctor appointments or for the delivery of the baby. She might not have maternity leave. In many communities, affordable childcare for infants and toddlers simply doesn’t exist. Programs such as SNAP, programs that help ensure families have enough food to eat, are constantly under attack from Republicans. How we can’t all agree that everyone has a right to food on the table is beyond me. But the social supports that women of all income levels need to raise a family in this country don’t exist, so for many single women, and even some married women, having a family is financially ruinous, if not impossible. As for anyone’s personal religious beliefs about abortion, those have no place in public policy. And if someone opposes abortion on religious grounds, and is also opposed to Planned Parenthood and the Affordable Care Act, then in addition to being anti-abortion, they are also anti-women. Both Planned Parenthood and the ACA provide women with low-cost, effective birth control, which are vital in reducing unplanned pregnancies. Research proves that providing low-income women with free, reliable birth control (such as an IUD) dramatically reduces the incidence of unplanned pregnancies, for very little money. Republican legislators routinely defund these programs, while actively working to limit access to abortion services. And I won’t even get started about the ridiculousness of a company such as Hobby Lobby having “religious beliefs” they can use to deny women healthcare. The abortion debate really isn’t about abortion, it’s about family planning. When women have access to the health care they need, unplanned pregnancies go way down. We can reduce abortions without making it illegal. But when I see people railing against abortion, and railing against Planned Parenthood, I know their concern isn’t for women. And genuinely, I can’t express how frustrating it is to have large groups of old white men in our government making these decisions. Men who will never be impacted by these policies. Men who use their religion to hide their racism, misogyny and bigotry. I genuinely believe that when we have a government that more fully reflects our country, that same government will become more compassionate and just.
There are a lot of other reasons, but these are the big ones, on why I now call myself a democrat. I’m invested in electing more legislators who believe that healthcare is a right; who want to create a more just and compassionate immigration system – including a pathway for those residents who are here now and are good citizens to stay; who understand our government’s racist past and are willing to work to rectify the damage that’s been done; who understand that climate change is real and will advocate for policies that reduce the human impact on the planet; who believe that being lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender is being part of a protected class – meaning that you can’t be fired from your job due to these things or denied healthcare, and believe that marriage is for everyone; who support researching gun violence and support developing policy solutions to address it; who support a woman’s right to choose and who acknowledge that the government has no place in a woman’s healthcare or family planning beyond ensuring access to equitable care. I’ve spent the last year volunteering with my girlfriend’s campaign for the state house and have three yard signs in my front lawn for the very first time. I expect that this is the start of deeper engagement with the political system. In the midst of a year that’s been very challenging for a lot of reasons, knowing that I’m actively helping to get more democrats, and especially women who are democrats, elected, has provided much peace of mind. I’m no longer sitting on the sidelines of this democratic republic. I am late to the party, but I’m finally here.
