A Lesson in Intersectionality
By William Huggins
What am I doing here?
The night before the Presidential election of 1988 between Democrat Michael Dukakis and Republican George H. W. Bush I sat in front of what would now be considered an ancient rotary telephone dialing prospective Democratic voters in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, urging them to the polls the following day. A fellow university student getting credit for a political science class lured me into the phone bank. I’d been an environmental activist since 1985, urging people to sign petitions, tabling in the student union, writing on environmental issues for my university student newspaper. A group of us even took one shot at guerilla theater.
The phone bank was not only my first experience in activist politics—the next day I’d cast my first ballot, being too young to vote in 1984.
The Reagan administration, of which George H. W. Bush was a key part, had been a disaster for environmentalists for eight years. Dukakis did not have environmentalism high on his agenda, though Democrats more often prioritized environmental protections at a higher level than Republicans.
I was enthusiastic to cast my first vote. I tried to carry that passion into my phone banking. But the 1988 campaign was my first experience in how ugly politics can get, as the Bush team, at one point trailing in the polls by 17 points, ran an ad about an incarcerated African-American man named Willie Horton. While governor of Massachusetts, Dukakis put some inmates on a furlough program and one of them, Mr. Horton, went on to commit an assault and rape while released. The ad was shocking in its blatant racist tone. It was also effective. Dukakis went on the defensive and other important issues, including environmental ones, got eclipsed. My carefully crafted phone calls for clean air and water and wildlife protections found themselves pushed aside by, “I don’t want Black murderers released from prison.”
I learned an important lesson that election night about intersectionality. A Presidential campaign’s ability to use Willie Horton to win stemmed not only from the unequal history of race relations in the United States but also marginalized non-white Americans who lived amidst environmental pollution white Americans would never tolerate, including South Dakota’s indigenous population. 1988 was pre-Google, yet I still managed to find a wide variety of books at my university library from Native American and other non-white writers about their environmental realities. I learned that working toward any kind of environmental justice must include racial and social aspects, as well.
I was raised to see participation in our country’s politics as a civic duty, including voting. But voting works best with an educated electorate. In 1988, millions of Americans, mostly white, chose to believe a manipulated 30-second commercial about one flawed African-American man versus the overwhelming amount of positive results from the furlough program. Perhaps no amount of fact-based evidence will move someone convinced of the rightness of his or her position. But in an era when anyone can upload a YouTube video or overwhelmed fact checkers on social media sites cannot keep up with the level of disinformation spread from organizations with enough capital to push forward their version of reality, the Willie Horton ad stands, to me, as an early example of what we might now call “fake news.” It should remind us not only of where America used to be but also of how far we have to go.
I’ve been active in politics ever since I cast my first vote in 1988. I’ve learned a lot, and over that time believe I have done a lot of good. And now, whether I’m tabling or phone banking or at a rally or peacefully protesting, or especially working with first time voters, not since that night in 1988 have I had to ask myself what I’m doing here.
William Huggins was born in the stunning canyon country of southeastern Utah. Due to his father’s unique work for the United States Air Force, he grew up in a series of remote places. Surrounded by wild open spaces for much of his life, he spends a lot of time exploring and enjoying the natural world with his wife, daughter, son, and three rescue dogs. He has an MA in Literature from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He has published multiple short stories, environmental essays, and critical articles, and is the author of the book Ghosts, and the forthcoming book Regenesis, both available from Owl House Books.