I was once a Republican.
The reason that I registered Republican is because we were extremely poor during my teenage years. Stay with me. I’ll bring it around.
When I was 15, my parents were arrested and sent to prison. My grandmother adopted my brother, sister and me. Gran worked tireless hours at Pay-less Shoes. I got an after school job at Little Caesars. However, there was still never enough: food, money, air. We often relied on food stamps and using food stamps in a small town grocery store is like forgetting your lines while the spotlight beats down on you.
Two weeks after I got my driver’s license gran and I got into a big argument because I wanted to drive my cousin home by myself and she didn’t think that I was ready for that.
However, she finally relented and within 10 minutes of leaving the driveway I had plowed her Buick Riveria into the back of a stopped 1976 Chevy Nova driven by an octogenarian. The tank-like Nova survived without a scratch, but the front of our car crimped up like mall hair. My grandmother carried only liability insurance on the car and we certainly had no money to fix the car. It still ran – mostly, but it became the mobile manifestation of our nomadic, busted lives.
Although I did the type of high school partying usually reserved for John Hughes’ movies, I received a full ride to West Virginia University thanks in large part to the work of my high school guidance counselor. I also received Pell Grants and work studies for living expenses. I was ashamed that my scholarship was for students with academic promise but with financial need. I wouldn’t even attend the annual luncheon for the scholarship recipients.
However, just as I greedily consumed the name brand cereal that Gran, ignoring the side-eyes of the cashiers and other customers who believed that poor kids didn’t deserve Fruity Pebbles, purchased with the food stamps, I most certainly allowed my scholarship to pay my way to a higher education.
If I left out the “needs-based” part of my scholarship and simply stated that it was an academic full-ride, I not only looked smarter than I was, but I could also take all the credit. Eventually I started buying into my own lies. I convinced myself that I had done it all on my own, that I didn’t need nor had I received help, that I worked hard, that if I could do it, there was no excuse for anyone else.
Well, what I was, was completely and totally full of shit!
I hadn’t done one thing on my own, not one thing. Hell, I barely knew how to do my own laundry.
My grandmother had worked herself to near death trying to keep my brother, sister and me fed and sheltered. Yes, she received food stamps and other government assistance, but she never quit working. It is just next to impossible to keep a family of four afloat on little more than minimum wage. I had an after school job, but I didn’t give most of it to my gran or save it for college. No I blew it. Blew it trying to buy the things that I thought would help me fit in with my rich friends.
I received a scholarship to WVU, but that wouldn’t have been possible without a kind guidance counselor that fought for me. I had worked hard, I had over come some adversity, but I had not worked anywhere close to my full potential, and there are a heap load of people that overcome more on a daily basis than I have in my entire lifetime. Yet, I puffed my chest out, I beat on it, and I proclaimed, Look at me. Me. Me. Me. I have never asked for help.
And, since I didn’t get any help, I damn sure didn’t want anyone else to get any help. They can do it all by themselves – just like me. Not my job to help them. I had to look out for me.
And, that is why a poor kid, with an immigrant’s last name, registered with the GOP. I thought that they were my people.
It was a short lived stint. Fortunately, in college, I met a diverse group of people.
I quickly learned that Republicans, with a few exceptions, ain’t my people.
This was reinforced when I was an event planner and the special assistant to the CEO of a large commercial real estate firm. As a person that truly enjoys creature comforts, this job, in many ways, was a dream. First class flights, five star resorts, silky smooth wine. I was paid to party.
Well, I was paid to party with rich white dudes. The vast majority of said rich white dudes were solidly Republicans. These were the people that I expect to be Republicans. These were the people that I once thought I wanted to be.
At these parties there were people with yachts, planes, summer homes, fall homes, winter homes and spring homes. There were people that knew their way around the banking systems in the Cayman Islands and Switzerland.
There were lawyers, bankers, brokers. There were not mechanics, teachers, police officers, coal miners, plumbers, fire fighters, nurses, waitresses, sanitation workers. My people. My people were not there.
Some of the rich white dudes were self-made, some had money handed to them. I did not begrudge their wealth. For the most part, they took more risks, worked longer hours, and had much more at stake than I did. I did begrudge their lack of concern for anyone they deemed beneath them…and, that was most everyone. They talked down to the wait staff, they destroyed rooms, they had bell hops fired, they yelled, they scoffed. At my people.
My people are: draft beers, good wine, cheeseburgers, tofu, football games, poetry readings, family holidays, beach vacations, rock concerts, Broadway plays. My people send casseroles for funerals, candy dishes for weddings. My people fix your flat, pick you up, bail you out. My people drive pick-up trucks, hybrids. They read the classics, the comics, Field & Stream. My people love God, Buddha, Allah, and the Universe.
My people believe that Black Lives Matter, that white privilege is real, that who you love shouldn’t dictate the rights that you are afforded and that scientists, epidemiologist and doctors know more about diseases than their high school classmate who slept through junior year biology. They believe in the right to love, the right to choose, the right to have medicine when they are sick, the right to bear arms, the right to be.
My people worry about their jobs, the deficit, the future, but they accept change, progress, new ways, new people. They understand that the system, in many ways, is completely busted. They understand that some take advantage of the system, that are some are lazy, entitled, but they know that the system is necessary. It is necessary for people like my grandmother. For me.
Because sometimes you can work, work until your back spasms, your fingers bleed, your mind tires, and you still need help.They believe that the Hernandezes, Chins, and Nguyens of today should be allowed to strive for the American dream just like the Yokosuks, Marinos, and McMillians of yesterday.
My people don’t back down. They have taught me how to love and how to fight. My people believe in working hard, doing the right thing, and holding the door for those coming behind them.
I have done nothing on my own. I have been fortunate enough to have help every step of my way – in spite of myself. So many people were invested in me. I now feel that it is my responsibility to help others – in whatever small ways that I can.
It is my responsibility to my people.
This article was written by a guest blogger. The opinions expressed here are those of the writer and do not reflect the opinions of Bob Lacey, Sheri Lynch or the Bob & Sheri show.
Soshally Awkward
Sosha Lewis is a writer whose work has been featured in The Washington Post, Huffington Post, MUTHA Magazine and The Charlotte Observer. She writes about her sometimes wild, sometimes hilarious, sometimes heartbreaking past filled with free-lunches, a grimy sports bar, a six foot tall Albino woman who tried to save her teenage soul, felonious, drug addicted parents, an imaginary friend named Blueberry and growing up nestled in the coal-dusted mountains of West Virginia.
