We are entering the final stretch of the campaign. It hasn't hit complete high gear yet, but it's cruising. The conventions are over and both candidates are out of the gates with the VPs in tow. This week was all about voter registration. People need to be registered in VA 29 days before the election (30 days in WA I think) so they need to be registered by the beginning of October. The students just showed back up at the colleges and make good fodder for new registrations. Someone came up with the brilliant idea of standing up in freshman classes before class and handing out voter registration forms and collecting them at the end. One person got 95 new registrations in one class! I am missing my voter reg outfit.
Most people around here do voter reg by walking up to people ans asking them if they are registered. That works, but it annoys people. There are lots of groups registering voters in Richmond right now and people are getting tired of being asked. It's much more fun for everyone if you wear something eye-catching and a big sign that tells people what the person is doing. Then you don't have to go bother anyone who you can't provide a service to, but they will notice and approach you if they need your services.
I met a hilarious guy canvassing who had this slightly crazy gleam in his eyes and claimed," I wouldn't vote for him! He's a Communist. I believe in that!" He said gesticulating vehemently to the image of the constitution on his wall.
Let me tell you a little bit about Richmond. It's the capital of Virginia, has a population of about 200,000, maybe half that of Seattle. The city seems to consider itself part of the south. In 1865, the confederacy burned Richmond on it's way out of town, so there isn't much left from before then. The architecture in the city center is beautiful, all these late 19th century tall skinny brick or stone houses with balconies on each floor and pretty plate glass windows. There are some cobblestones, but most of the streets are paved. Greater Richmond is very segregated, with white people and more recently white collar foreigners living in the suburbs and a heavily black urban area. The caveat to that is Virginia Commonwealth college, which seems to own half the office buildings in Richmond and has a student body of about 30,000 undergrads. The area around the college is your typical university area, with cheap food, rental housing, bars, etc. Adjacent to that is Jackson ward, a fairly poor, very black, old neighborhood. Downtown is adjacent to that. It has some office buildings that are occupied, but a lot of vacant store fronts. If you keep going, you get to Shokoe strip and then to "The Bottom." That's the industrial looking area with highways traveling on overpasses 75 feet in the air. There are a lot of bars and clubs, with a more black clientele than the bars need the university.
The strangest part about Richmond is that the city feels empty. People ride bikes around here with no helmets, no lights, and sometimes the wrong way down a one way street, but the streets are empty enough that it doesn't matter. Restaurants close at 9:00, nobody is walking around, there are no movie theaters, not even a place to rent movies that I've found yet, few grocery stores. It's hard to find a job in the city. And there is a church on almost every corner. It's weird. The suburbs are quickly spreading across the countryside with their chain stores, community gates, and no soliciting signs. It seems like the rich and middle class fled the city and never came back. There is no business to draw people back, fund schools, or support local communities, so it has been left to rot.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment