Dear Secretary,
Congratulations on your victory.
Congratulations on claiming a win when the votes of 3 million were legally barred.
Congratulations on Wyoming where you won, even though you didn’t.
Congratulations on Arizona where the elderly, the crippled, and others waited in blistering heat, never to have a vote cast.
Congratulations on your victories, hollow though they be.
But I ask you Secretary Clinton,
I ask you from the bottom of my heart as someone who respects you.
Believe it or not at the bottom of all my rhetoric, there is respect.
So I ask you Madame Secretary,
Where were you?
You claim to have always fought for civil rights,
where were you?
You claim that you can take on the banks,
where were you?
You claim to be ready to lead our nation in combat.
Where have you been?
Were you there in 2005 when Jorge came back from Iraq, a once youthful soul, so bitter at the sites, the murders and rapes endured and seen in war?
Where were you when he came home?
Where were you when my black brothers and latino sisters had their families torn apart?
Where were you when the Libyan child choked on shrapnel, or when the Iraqi girl was gangraped by our own uniforms?
When I saw the greatest minds of my generation, starving hysterical naked, because their own leaders, their own saviors, got up in front of millions to say, “Your love is wrong.”
Where were you?
I know where you were
YOU sent Jorge to Iraq.
YOU said those words.
YOU sent brothers and sisters to rot.
YOU turned your back.
You say you have always acted the opposite.
You have always been the progressive.
I say, check the tape.
Is throwing a whole race under the bus to move your own agenda the opposite of what I accuse you of above?
Is turning your back on trans, gay, and lesbian citizens the opposite?
No doubt you refute my claims,
yet their is one thing you can not refute.
Your silence.
You “always supported” black americans, but stayed silent when they got rounded and locked up.
You “always fought” for the LBGT citizens, yet stayed silent for years while they were beaten, killed, and their love roadblocked.
You have helped recently, and you have listened and started to listen.
But your efforts are too late.
You’re followers may forgive you.
They may even exemplify and trust you.
But I will never forget.
I will never forget the villainous minds Iraq created of my friends.
I will never forgive any leader who let my friends think their love was wrong.
I will never forget the pictures of those Libyan children.
I will never forget Secretary Clinton.
Now, some fairness.
You do fight for women.
American women.
You stand by a women’s right to choice.
American women.
Do I question your actions that have done good?
No, in fact I applaud them.
But you can not say you have always done something,
when I can check the tape.
You can not say you are the radical, that you will be change,
but tell us to be patient
to “be realistic.”
You do have math on your side.
This is a fact,
but math means nothing under manipulation.
You may call it nonsense, how dare I have a sense of right and wrong.
You may call it delusion, that we should work with the system the way Chavez, King, and many others did.
After all, they didn’t fight, right? They just followed the established precedent, right?
You have common sense on your side.
It would have been common sense for Dr. King never to have gone to jail.
It would have been common sense for Cesar to just shut up and work.
It would have been common sense for your heroes to just accept that they could not vote.
And it would be common sense just to forget, and vote for you.
No doubt you see my point.
Common sense is safe, but it only protects, it does not challenge.
So Secretary Clinton,
forgive me for being less than excited over your victory.
Forgive me for being less than enthusiastic that you may lead this country.
The greatest enemy to Dr. King was not the hateful roadblocks,
it was the white moderate.
Secretary Clinton,
Don’t pretend to be anything else.
You may have seen the light,
you may finally after an insultingly long silence be on the right side of history.
But you are the white moderate.
You are the chorus of Mississippi Goddamn.
I will not call you whore or slut.
You are neither, you are a person.
You are a strong person,
a pillar of a woman.
Yet you insult us,
you insult everyone, by pretending you don’t have blood on your palms.
You insult us when you think we can’t hold you to scrutiny.
You insult us when it seems you think we won’t be able to check the tape.
But what was insulting the most?
Your silence.
Your silence killed more than any war, than any DOMA could.
Let me conclude by saying Madame secretary,
You are not Ms. Warren,
nor will you ever be.
So congratulations Madame Secretary, and best of luck.
No matter what happens,
all anger aside,
I assure you, you will need it.
James J Jackson 