“My silences had not protected me. Your silences will not protect you.” –Audre Lorde The Cancer Journals

               I begin my letter with this epigraph because I routinely have been labeled as a member of a silent generation; I am twenty-four years old, a woman, and a college student. Three markers which have led to me and others like me being labeled apathetic when it comes to politics. As the election date nears, I can be silent no longer. America I am here to tell you that our apathy is caused by the feeling that we don’t count. In the year 2000, our government told us our voice doesn’t matter. It is the Supreme Court and the Senate who choose the president, not the American people. Now, I come to you on bended knee to beg that you reignite in me the belief in democracy.

               Someday, when we look back at the past decade, we will see that it was not 9/11 that was the defining tragedy of our generation, but the death of democracy. While President George W. Bush has been accused of stealing the election in the past, I am accusing him of something far greater. I am accusing him of stealing the dream of democracy that brought us all here in the first place. Your mothers and fathers, my grandparents traveled across the ocean to gain a voice, an opportunity to be counted, and a chance to be involved in the decisions that impact their lives. In 2000, they were told that their venture was in vain. Though many of you have placed this event into a cultural unconscious, I ask you to remember that on that night in November thousands were silenced. I want you to recognize the irony of a man standing on a podium, claiming we are fighting for global freedom, global democracy, while in 2000, as democracy was failing he did nothing. No recount. No investigation. A silence so deafening to my generation that we have grown disheartened.

               Mr. President, your façade does not fool us. If you wanted us to believe in the John Wayne appearance you give on the television then you would have acted like a true cowboy back in November. You would have shown up at the O.K. Corral, faced your opponent head on. You would have pushed for the recount that would have given you some legitimacy. However, when we were desperately in need of a cowboy of democracy, you were hiding behind a wall of suits.

               Mr. President, I am asking you for an apology. You have not only stolen my belief in democracy, but my hope. You have replaced these ideals with fear. A panic so perpetuated by your administration that people now act blindly out of fear—terrorist alerts, the ideology of hate, the Patriot Act. To these silent sheep, I ask that you remember the words of Mr. Bush’s predecessor: “the only thing to fear is fear itself.” Fear enables oppression and silence—a turn away from logic.

               Please America restore in me the belief that we are a country to be proud of-- that we believe in a freedom that cannot be imposed upon another culture, but one that begins when we raise our voices together and reclaim our rights. This November, I will place my voice into an envelope and put it in a ballot box with a prayer that the man, who took the death of thousands of Americans and turned it into a political tool, will be told that we will not be silent. We will not vote for you out of fear. We will not let this continue. We will reclaim democracy. I beg you America to join me in this fight for our defining rights. My friends, my brothers and my sisters are dying because of your silence. Please America, do not hand us—your future—a lesser democracy.

Love,
Cassandra Parente
A Member of the Apathetic Generation