Why I’m not going back

By James Fredette

I am not going back to the days when girls were expected to take classes on cooking and sewing and couldn’t even consider taking a class in a metal or wood shop.

I am not going back to the years when my single parent mother worked for one half of her male coworker’s salary and was expected to train men who would then become her bosses.

I am not going back to my young manhood when a girl “got in trouble” and was ostracized or shunned, while the boy who impregnated her was viewed as a stud.

I am not going back to even the early seventies when a wife couldn’t get a credit card without her husband “signing on” for the bill, too.

I am not going back to Jim Crow America where people of color often couldn’t vote, rent or buy houses in white neighborhoods.

I am not going back to hear a public-school teacher say to a bus load of white students after a black girl got off the bus: “Did you smell that?”

I am not going back to when an unspoken, but widely accepted, caste system placed descendants of northern or western European immigrants at the highest caste, and relegated southern and eastern ethnics as lesser whites and relegated people of color to the bottom of the totem pole.

There are more reasons why I am not going back, but enough is enough.

I am going forward to an America where reproductive rights are a human right.

I am going forward to an America where all people are judged “not by the color of their skin but the quality of their character.”

I am going forward so my daughter earns the respect and accolades and pay worthy of her time and effort.

I am going forward with Kamala Harris who embodies the American dream, and Tim Walz who was the school advisor for gay teens who needed a man to model for them what real manhood is.  And that is not body slamming anyone.

I am going forward by voting blue.  If you are not registered to vote, do so.  As my sainted mother often said, “It’s easy to sit on your nuts and howl, so get up and do something positive.”

And I am going forward because I won’t go back.