Where are the 100 million people who failed to vote in 2000 and are unlikely to vote in 2004? Political analyst Farai Chideya looks beyond day-to-day political struggles to the heart of a nation at war with itself. The 2000 election highlighted the rift between liberal/conservative and "Red State"/ "Blue State." But that superficial crack in our society actually is evidence of much more serious, indeed foundational, damage in our society. The United States, Chideya argues, lacks the moral, legal, and psychological framework for debating complex issues in a pluralistic society. Instead we rely on an outdated idea of dichotomy, that each issue has two opposing sides instead of many interested parties. And in so doing, we have lost, in effect disenfranchised, half the country.
Chideya’s title essay compliments many other ones written in the course of covering campaigns and controversies. She skips the easy answer, showing how black/white thinking (a key element of the Bush Administration) restricts our moral and political responses. A real democracy will allow us to acknowledge the complexity of our own lives, as well as our political interests. As we do that, we will be able to craft a working vision of government and civic life.

Farai Chideya is a multi-media journalist who has worked in print, television, and online. She has been named one of Alternet's New Media Heroes. In 1997 Newsweek named her to its "Century Club" of 100 people to watch. Chideya has been a correspondent for ABC News, anchored the prime time program "Pure Oxygen" on the Oxygen women's channel, and contributed commentaries to CNN, Fox, MSNBC, and BET. Chideya's Don't Believe the Hype: Fighting Cultural Misinformation About African-Americans (Plume), is now in its eighth printing (over 40,000 sold). Her second book The Color of Our Future (Morrow, 1999) analyzes the lives of today's diverse teens and twenty-somethings and was named one of the best book for teens by the New York Public Library. Both books have been featured in college curricula across the country,

Chideya will be conducting speaking engagements at colleges across the country. Please check out Soft Skull's events page for more info!

From the Preface

…There is another war going on right now, a war to revive and redefine American democracy. The biggest threat we face in winning this war is failing to acknowledge that it is being waged. Yet every day we see evidence that America is falling apart.

Right now I am sitting in my office. It’s on the tenth floor of a highrise office complex owned and largely occupied by a bank. The building is seventy percent empty. The bank accelerated layoffs after 9/11.

Many of my friends are un- or under-employed. These are not slackers (God bless the endangered slacker) but college-educated overachievers who are humbled, financially and emotionally, to realize that their skills are disposable.

Subsequently, many of them are without healthcare or paying exorbitant rates, particularly if they are freelancers and/or have the financially deadly “pre-existing condition.” One friend works full time as a “freelancer” and needs a physical therapist. She pays $450 out of pocket per month, and considers it a bargain. My sister, a doctor in a community health clinic in California, sees a steady stream of the uninsured, ranging from homeless individuals to working-class families.

My mother recently retired as a Baltimore City Public Schools teacher. The city schools, always vulnerable, are now running a $25 million deficit. The system lay off a thousand workers and is asking teachers for pay cuts and unpaid furlough days. In Portland, Oregon, where several friends live, the city schools closed two weeks early last school year due to budget deficits.

This country needs help—all of our help. For me, saving this country is personal. And you?

Maybe you vote. Perhaps you’re satisfied with the service you get from our government because you vote. Perhaps, on the other hand, you feel as though you can only vote for a series of “least-worsts,” candidates who are the lesser of two-evils.

Or perhaps, like half of eligible Americans, you don’t vote. Our government calls people who have been unemployed so long that they have stopped looking for work “discouraged workers.” We do not report these discouraged workers as unemployed; thus, our accounting of unemployment in America is a fraud. For example, if America’s reported workforce were the same size as it was three years ago, unemployment would be 7.3 percent instead of 5.6 percent. Instead, millions of Americans have just stopped looking. Many Americans have stopped participating in politics as well. But we cannot discount the discouraged voters in America. Some of them are what we might call classically apathetic—“passionless” or “indifferent,” according to the dictionary definition. But many more have been without adequate political representation so long that they simply cannot bear to vote.

If you’re one of those “discouraged voters,” there’s no reason to be ashamed or embarrassed. But there is a reason to change. The political system as it stands right now is structured to discount your input. You deserve to be heard. More than that, there are literally thousands of individuals and organizations working to make sure that you can be heard.

This book is about making sure that every citizen’s vote is valued and that voting can actually change the system. This is about reclaiming a space for ourselves in the life of the country, and being proud to do it.

I am writing not just as a reporter or a political analyst but as an American citizen, with all the joys, responsibilities, and perils that that entails. I ask you to sit with me a while and think about our future…