The Veep

“Seriously,” Loretta said, “if Obama chooses an anti for a running mate I’m not going to vote.” Rumors have been swirling that anti-choice candidates like Bob Casey from Pennsylvania are on the Obama short list. Loretta started flailing her arms at the idea of the insult, pointing her finger metaphorically at the patriarchal establishment that seems to surround and conquer any hopeful progressive leader that assumes too much power. She warned me that her head was going to explode with pent up feminist frustration. “We should start our own country,” she finally blurted.

“OK,” I said. After having started a business with her that’s going pretty well I am open to most of her ambitious ideas. All of her big ideas go pretty well. One time she suggested we organize a national march and almost a million people showed up. “But if we do start our own country,” I said, “I insist that we participate in the Olympics.”

Loretta steadfastly avoids the Olympics because they are nationalistic. I, on the other hand, am recording every minute and am suddenly finding myself playing beach volleyball and tennis in Riverside Park. Loretta pondered the complications of our new country and its inherent nationalism. I could sense an opening on the Olympics front. “It’s about the opening ceremony,” I argued. “It’s a terrific message moment. The world is watching, even if it’s just for a few seconds while the two of us march in.”

That seemed to get her. It is simply too much of a message moment to pass up. But what message? Impactful protest imagery is hard. At every major women’s rights march in the past three decades, organizers have seriously considered the idea that everyone wear white in solidarity with the early suffragists. It was an idea that never carried the day for many reasons, including that the image could subtly perpetuate the “whiteness” of the feminist movement. An alternate idea was to toss tennis balls etched with the word “equality” onto the white house lawn as we marched by, but even in the pre-9/11 days it seemed like a terrible idea to give the snipers on the rooftop reason to worry.

There is little to no possibility of sign-holding or banner furling in Olympic ceremonies like this one. We practiced flashing synchronized peace symbols but even that might get us kicked out of line or bleeped out of our three seconds of NBC coverage. Finally Loretta and I settled on subtlety. We will not dress in uniform. There will be no matching berets and blazers. Each of us will be individualistic in our dress while unified in our cause. In an age of public discourse that lacks any degree of finesse or discernment (“Drill! Drill! Drill!”), we will use an understated strategy.

Surely the public can still appreciate symbolism in our info-tainment news age. It may not be symbolic protest on the level of Tommie Smith and John Carlos at the 1968 Mexico City Games. But gestures, however small, should never be underestimated. Like voting, which is perhaps the smallest and most powerful gesture we get. I suspect that even Loretta on election day will cast her vote for the candidate that draws us closest to justice, regardless of what Veep emerges. Though, really, why not just choose a second in command that buoys our feminist aspirations? Is it too much to hope that we will enjoy our moment behind the curtain, pulling the lever for good and not for the least of all evils?