Preface to Prop 8 Sucks (Recounting the Election)

So this is my first real blog on this site. I don't blog much. I wrote a few blogs on myspace. One blog almost cost me to lose one very dear friend. After that, I didn't blog anymore... until now. These past few weeks have been crazy for me, and I think to write about what I'm thinking my help me sort out what is actually happening in my head.

First thing I want to talk about... the election.
Today is November 28th, Black Friday, 2008. I was at Jack-in-the-Box with about 9 of my high school friends, a little Thanksgiving reunion for us old friends. We were talking about many things from college life to what's new and what's not, this and that,, random stuff. Someone brought up Proposition 8, and our conversation started to heat up with our outrage from it passing earlier this month. We were talking about how absurd the points made by the Yes for Prop 8 campaign were, and how separate is not equal and how some people are down right stupid. I actually didn't say anything on this topic, funny thing being that it affects me the most. Thinking about it, I didn't talk much during the entire conversation. I was feeling rather uneasy from otherstuff on my mind, but to see my friends having so passion against Prop 8 made me really happy, really thankful. I could see that they actually followed its pretty closely, talking about statistics and ideas about marriage and their feelings during the election. This reminded me of what I was going through this past November 4nd and the days following it.

On my college campus, there was intense phone banking (people met up two, three, or more times a week for months proceding November 4nd), flyer, recruiting volunteers, facebooking (holy shit there still facebooking against Prop 8), guest speakers, everything to fight against this awful proposition (major props to Philip Alvarado). The fight was long, rigorous, and required many of us fighters to step out of our comfort zone. Then the deciding day come upon us and what craziness that day was.

So this is how my day went down. I went to class. Then, I went to the Oscar Wilde House to vote, but that was the wrong place for me. So I went to where I was suppose to be, a rather nicely built church down on College, and I voted. Afterwards I went home for a little while. A bit before 8 o'clock, I headed out of my apartment to go to a Southeast Asian Mentorship (SEAM) meeting, and from the moment I stepped outside, I could hear shouting and screams of excitement. Passing the dormitories (Unit 1 and 2), the high rise buildings seem to come alive with chanting and howling from high above. Standing at there, a feeling of eerieness and exhiliration dawned upon me. It was totally epic. Then I went to campus where my meeting was going to be(Eshelman), but before going to upstairs to SEAM, I peeked at the TV next door at the beer pub (Bear's Lair) where a lot of people gathered to drink and watch the election polls closely. Again, loudness and a comforting feeling of joy consumed the air. I went to my meeting which was brief and concise, given that all of us were too anxious to get out and drink and celebrate Obama's victorous moment. After getting out, I went with my friends and my boyfriend to watch Obama's acceptance speech projected on a large white screen. Such a great moment... I even teared up a bit, something I don't do much. BUT... I also notice that Prop 8 was leading in yeses. I tried to think positively, saying to myself that only a small precentage was counted. But seriously WHAT a party pooper.

After watching Obama finish his speech, I decided to go. I was getting a headache, so I hugged my boyfriend who was staying to drink at the pub with his friends of age. I walked a few blocks and I reached the Durant Food Court when I decided to join a whole bunch of people running on the streets. It was a small mob when I join them. However, it grew and grew. The crowd was screaming, shouting, yelling, singing, chanting, whatever to let the world know that Obama won and how great, no... how FUCKING AWESOME, it was. We high-fived people driving. We banged on car hoods and windows. We stopped traffic dead in their tracks. We took pictures and videos a while marching down Durant all the way to Stattuck, stopped traffic on both sides, and made a stop at the intersection of Shattuck and Center. A massive group hundle around a traffic light post which three students climbed and held the American flag and a No for Prop 8 sign. After awhile we headed up center towards campus, went down Oxford, and back up Bancroft where another group of large proportions had assembled. Let me tell you, to run at the forefront of the traffic stopping parade of mostly students was one of the most greatest moments of my life that I can remember. Its like one of those moments history teachers ask you to ask old people, and those old people are suppose to be able to tell you everything about that exactly moment. Crazy and true. Anyway, the parading mob met up with the stationary mob at the corner of Telegraph and Bancroft. There was two police cars competely surrounded, and officers standing next to them giving high-fives to the people in the crowd. The traffic was redirected UP Bancroft! Thats pretty novel to many of us because Bancroft is a one way street, always going downhill. At the site of the crowd of a good few thousand people, there were people climbing up poles, traffic signs, trees. All was peaceful though. A dumbass stepped on top of one of the police cars to make a speech, but the officers told him to get off. He wouldn't listen, so the rest of the crowd told him to get off the car, which was a little more persuasive. After being there for good half hour or so, I bid my boyfriend goodbye once more because my headache was only getting worse. I walked up Bancroft towards College, moving much faster than the beeping and screaming (also out of celebration) cars stuck on the road. I went home, did some other stuff, and then went to sleep.
I woke up, and my boyfried was already on his computer, checking the polls. He told me that Proposition 8 passed. What horror fell upon me. I checked online with him. Then we dressed up in black and red to mourn the death of our rights, went to class, and at noon went to a rally on Sproul to listen to people in our community talk about how they were feeling. Damn... so next blog will be about how I felt (which was not unique to me).