*Day 115: Florida Freedom Summer of 2024*: This mid-term election is
wrongly being seen as an end in itself; this election is not an end but a
step from the journey begun when a black man became president of a nation
which once envisioned him and his race only as slaves.

These posts were started more than 100 days ago, to create an opportunity
to describe not what has gone wrong or what has happened, but what is to
come.  There are bound to be lunacies on election night and the mass media
will feed on them, in light of the fact that there reportedly are 299
candidates who believe that the 2020 election was stolen including several
seeking to be secretaries of state.  If elected, they could try to control
the outcome in their states, in 2024 to validate only approved Republican
candidates.

In fact, whatever the outcomes, this election is just a step into the
future.  Young people understand that, especially LBGTQ people, transgender
people, non-binary people, changing bodies as well as minds,  emerging with
genes from people of different races, and backgrounds, infants, who came
into a 21st century in America facing a new world of gun violence, climate
change, more floods, hurricanes, storms, fires, and droughts, and other
events which were rarer in the previous century.  They have been brought
into a world which literally didn’t exist when I and my generation arrived
more than 80 years ago.

In the past decade, we all have had to learn together that someone is not
he or she, but them, or some other identity which does not begin and end
with simple gender definitions.  Oh yes, some of you, like kings and queens
trying to protect your white beauties from harmful spinning wheels, you are
decreeing we can’t talk about gender or race or sex or any religious
beliefs other than Christian.   Remember that your ancestors or their
relatives tried to prevent teachers from mentioning Darwin or evolution.
It didn’t work.

Admittedly, Democrats, I mean real Democrats not the Dixiecrats whose
company I keep, are getting what we used to call uptight about the
mid-terms, because old conservative whites who know their time has come to
go, are desperately trying to hold on to the economic and political power
they acquired in the last century.  Ironically, no matter the election
outcomes, next Tuesday, they won’t be able to declare victory, because it’s
all going to be on the line again in 2024.   Like it or not, that’s going
to be a real election.

In the meantime, imagine the silliness of a single billionaire trying to
control Twitter.  Is Congress going to dumb down Facebook?  Can police
brutality be avoided by having body cameras fail or public relations people
explain that losing an eye to a K-9 dog isn’t as bad as some people seem to
think it is.

It can’t be done.  Talking about community policing isn’t going to change
the time honored practice against Driving While Black.  Cops aren’t going
to behave better on the streets.

Definitions started to change when young people organized a day in 2017 to
March for Their Lives.  So today little more than five years later, Florida
legislators have to deal with Michele Rayner-Goolsby, the first queer lady
elected to the State House of Representatives who is black.

They perhaps even have to be introduced to her black wife, Bianca Goolsby.
(See attached.)  Oh, they may prefer to deal with the Republican
challenging Representative Rayn Goolsby.  Meet Jeremy Brown.

·         Jeremy Brown was born in Murray, Kentucky
<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://ballotpedia.org/Murray,_Kentucky__;!!KOmxaIYkRmNA0A!WcJ_12JrMdNkxUsVNC5x2toRQT2hazCrr4plEGrXkCILf-jGfJcYVF187THOUeeJQVWz8MqZ0p1H9_XAbx7Aidig7I0$ >. He served in the United States
Army from 1992 to 2012 and reached the rank of Special Forces Master
Sergeant. He attended John A. Holmes High School and earned a bachelor's
degree from Liberty University. Brown's career experience includes working
as a small business owner and a volunteer firefighter/EMT. He has been
affiliated with the Oath Keepers, the Special Forces Association, and
American Legion Post 138.[1]
<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://ballotpedia.org/Jeremy_Brown_(Florida)*cite_note-bio2019-1__;Iw!!KOmxaIYkRmNA0A!WcJ_12JrMdNkxUsVNC5x2toRQT2hazCrr4plEGrXkCILf-jGfJcYVF187THOUeeJQVWz8MqZ0p1H9_XAbx7Aiq-iG5g$ >[2]
<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://ballotpedia.org/Jeremy_Brown_(Florida)*cite_note-2__;Iw!!KOmxaIYkRmNA0A!WcJ_12JrMdNkxUsVNC5x2toRQT2hazCrr4plEGrXkCILf-jGfJcYVF187THOUeeJQVWz8MqZ0p1H9_XAbx7Ajs11Dcg$ >

But the people won’t put up with Mr. Brown if he doesn’t deliver on
provision of the necessities of life for his constituents. The right wing
nay-sayers won’t last because it will soon become obvious that they can’t
solve real problems, unless they can solve real problems, of health care,
student loans, affordable housing, Medicaid, affordable drugs, etc.    (Be
assured I am not talking about judges who are another matter entirely and
may be lost to the people for decades.)

However, if the elected crazies can deliver the substances their supporters
need,  then we will have to put up with their nuttiness, just as they have
to deal in the Florida Senate with Shevrin Jones, a senator who happens to
be the first openly gay person on that body.

But whatever happens, Rayner-Goolsby and Jones aren’t going back into the
closet.  They are elected officials.  They are acting on the will of the
people.  And by now, you know when we talk of someone being the first,
there are bound to be more like them to come.  Democracy does work, no
matter how many election deniers are put in office.

*The New York Times* reports that Ben Sasse in leaving the U.S. Senate seat
to which he was re-elected only two years ago, has questioned whether that
body is needed at all.  He is going, but somebody will replace him.     The
Senate will go on and once in a while will produce an Affordable Health
Care Act, and provide means to limit harmful carbon emissions.

The Presidency will go on, and if a future election is truly stolen,
somebody will figure out that perhaps the institution which is not needed
is the Electoral College.   I have yet to hear a denier claim that Donald
J. Trump got more votes than Joe Biden in 2020.

Please remember, that great white post World War II generation TV anchorman
Tom Brokaw called the Greatest generation is almost gone.  My silent
generation too is on the way out.  The boomers, the nuclear family with
mom, dad, two and a half-children, a dog and a cat, and father knowing
best. is a relic of the past.   What is coming is going to be far more
diverse, racially and ethnically different, by age, appearance, and
beliefs, and consequently far more interesting.

So sit back on election night, smile at the results, and go to bed
recognizing that the United States we envision will still be there the next
morning—or as soon thereafter as possible.

Gabriel Hillel, for Florida Freedom Summer of 2024

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