I was arguing politics not long ago with a guy who thinks a lot like me. It started as a discussion about politics but at some point he was shouting and I was shouting back. What we were arguing about was the next mayor of Philadelphia, who that person should be and why. He's Irish, this fellow I'm mixing it up with. I hadn't even decided who "my guy" for mayor was, a discovery I made after he announced "his guy." Then and there I found out for the first time what I was really thinking by listening to the words that came out of my own mouth.. Which is why honest political arguments are not only healthy but crucial. We should be able to explain, if only to ourselves, the reasons we chose to cast our vote for one or any candidate for mayor of Philadelphia. For those of us who live in the city, the only vote bigger is for President of the United States. That is, if you believe that the mayor matters, or that the president matters, or that your two cents add up to one vote.
The number of people who don't care, don't believe, don't hope, don't vote is appalling, really. I know some very smart, very decent and very disillusioned middle class taxpaying adults who haven't voted since Vietnam because "voting only encourages them." Them being politicians, a subspecies so dependably despicable that politicians spend millions every election claiming not to be one. Everyone has a right not to vote. No one can force you to care.
. Thing is, my opponant and I didn't disagree on anything that mattered in terms of what each of us desires from the next mayor. In a brilliant feint, my Hibernian antagonist pulled a rope-a-dope. Instead of attacking he got all limp and sincere, leaning toward me and asking, "What can he do?" meaning the next mayor, or any mayor, perhaps. "What can he do?" about the obscene murder rate among young black males. The homicide statistics by age, race and gender in Philadelphia are as appalling as the hunched shoulders response by everyone from City Hall to the rowhouse kitchen table. Most homicides in the city are a rigged lottery, a two-for-one crime: One gets taken out, one gets taken away. If such a devastating racial imbalance was about jobs, or housing or educational opportunities instead of bloody murder, maybe more people would be upset. All I know is that if 10 white people were murdered over the weekend, or in a single week, this city would be going nuts. Why? Because it would be unacceptable. Because we would all demand that something be done. By comparison as a city, both black and white, we've lived silently with the awful truth of this self-selected genocide for decades. "What can he do?" the Irish man asked quietly. And I could only nod sadly.
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