When I was about 9 or 10, I spent an afternoon trying to teach my 50-year-old great uncle how to read.
I had arrived at my grandmother’s apartment, where he lived, with several items necessary for our lesson: Beginning readers books, the dictionary and penny candy, rewards for hard work–his, but mostly mine. My love of sweets was only surpassed by my love of books. I hoarded both.
I thought it was a shame–no, a sin–for someone to not know how to read. Which is why after learning his secret via eavesdropping, I asked him whether he minded me teaching him. My uncle was a stubborn man, given to rare moments of acquiescence. He agreed during one of those moments.
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On the afternoon of our lesson, we went over the alphabet, which he knew. Then we sounded out words. Here, he had great difficulty and his mind drifted often. For him, words lacked melody, and sounding them out was an inharmonious exercise that constantly got him tripped up.
My grandmother, his sister and legal guardian, later told me–starting with, “If you must know, Miss Nosy …”–that he had never learned to read because he lacked the capacity. This was why she assisted him in most things, often placing an “X” on documents that required his signature.
Like most adults who struggled with reading, he spent his life devising ways around the written word. He had done so while fighting in the Korean War. He also had done so for years while waiting tables at a downtown Chicago restaurant. (He drew pictures to remember patrons’ orders.)
Though my grandmother often helped him, he insisted on entering the voting booth alone. He didn’t mind my grandmother coaching him on the candidates. But on Election Day, he would cast his own vote, always a proud moment because he was old enough to remember relatives and friends who had been denied the opportunity. My grandmother recently told me that he never sat out an election while on American soil. Never.
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I was 17–ready but not quite able to vote–in 1983 when Mayor Jane Byrne visited my church on South Cottage Grove Avenue during the mayoral primary. When she entered from the back of the sanctuary, the choir stopped singing and the entire congregation turned around and stood to applaud.
She walked down a side aisle, accompanied by her staff and bodyguards, to the pulpit. Once there, she turned to the lectern to campaign.
When she left, the minister, as if reading my mind, preached a fiery sermon explaining that she had been a supporter of the church and that was why he was supporting her and not Harold Washington, the African-American candidate. He said sometimes the choices aren’t between bad and good candidates. Sometimes they’re between good and better candidates.
Byrne lost to Washington in the three-candidate primary that included Mayor Richard M. Daley. Washington never came to the church while campaigning for the general election. But not long after Washington’s primary win, my former minister delivered yet another fiery sermon on supporting the man he called, “Our Harold,” Chicago’s first black mayor.
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After considering the three gubernatorial candidates–Democrat Gov. Rod Blagojevich, Republican Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka and Green Party candidate Rich Whitney–I decided last week that I wasn’t going to vote for any of them. As an African-American, who grew up in a family that voted come hell or high water, the decision was painfully tough.
I tried to make that decision sit right. I couldn’t, so I will be making a choice. If we’re lucky, the choice between candidates is between good and better. But sometimes the choice is between bad and worse.
Our civic duty extends way before and beyond Election Day. I asked myself whether as a citizen I had done everything in my power to improve government. The answer was no. People who don’t vote no longer believe they have any power or that their voices matter. They are tired and frustrated and can come up with a list of good and legitimate reasons for not voting. That’s still copping out.
Sometimes you have to choose between bad and worse. Next time, demand better choices.
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