It's election day for the Democratic primary in good old New York City and I have my heart set on voting for Hillary Clinton. Being a black man, I know most people would label me a sell-out; however, I had thoroughly researched the credentials of both candidates and had decided to vote for Hillary for my own person reasons. It was a hard decision; but, a finalized decision none the less.
After a fairly productive day of selling fixed-income products and services to world's largest investment banks I decide to leave a little early so I can get a head start on my way home so I can vote and make a difference (hooray for me). As I’m entering the subway to hop on the NRW, which I take to 23rd street to catch my express bus to my temporary home in Co-op City, in the Bronx, and my Treo begins buzzing. “Shit! Another text message. These damn things cost me 0.15 a text.”, I thought to myself. I normally ignore these damned things, out of fear of responding and making the 0.15 charge grow to .030 then .045, .090 etc. This was my decision after I received over $100 in overage charges on my previous phone bill (thanks AT&T). However, some strange force in the universe compelled me to take a quick read.
Upon checking my incoming texts I soon found myself gazing upon a message read something like:
“SO LONG HAVE THE AFRICAN PEOPLE BEEN MISLED AND LIED TO. NOW WE FINALLY HAVE THE CHANCE TO HAVE A REAL VOICE IN AMERICA. NEVER FORGET SLAVERY, NEVER FORGET WHAT YOUR ANCESTORS FOUGHT FOR, AND NEVER EVER FORGET WHO PUT YOU IN SHACKLES. VOTE OBAMA!”
Damn, now I know what you’re thinking. That is one trippy ass text message; especially when it came from an unknown sender. However, this was not the only one I had received all day. On my commute home my phone kept buzzing with more and more text messages telling me to vote for Obama and to pass these messages along to friends and family. This really made me think and the "Angry Black Man" really came out of me.
I began to think about all of the injustices done to Black people in addition my own personal sufferings. So, I’m thinking about these things for the entire ride; however, I still decided to vote for Hillary (with a guilty conscience, of course). However, when I get to the local community center were the voting was taking place, there are swarms of Obama supporters holding signs and giving me fliers while encouraging me to “vote for the Black man brother” all the way to the booth. Even the booth operator asked me if I was voting for Obama while giving me the most awesome look of disdain when I hesitated to answer. At this moment I began to black out and started thinking back to those text messages and suddenly the thoughts and images of the oppression of Black people came racing through my head in a series of flashes in an A Clockwork Orange kind of fashion. Scenes of the Rodney King beating, policing hosing down protesters in the 60's, Amado Dialo, Sean Bell, conspiracy theories about Michael Jackson and R. Kelly being set up for the fall, the Tuskegee experiments, A Time to Kill, me not getting that job I wanted at Morgan Stanley, Stan O'Neil getting fired--you get the picture. When I finally snapped out of my psycho-trance I continued to proceed into the booth and pulled those rickety levers down for Obama and his party.
So, can we sway voters’ opinions via text message?
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