voices of a great tradition

You are reading http://livinginthehood.blogspot.com

I'm watching The West Wing.

During a commercial, I surfed over to PBS. It's some "documentary" on Time Life.

I immeditately recognized the voice of Scott Simon, Saturday morning's Weekend Edition anchor on NPR. He's voicing the piece.

Suddenly, I realized where I am. I am at the threshold of a long and dignified tradition: journalism.

Screw this infotainment garbage of the networks and cable.

I'm talking Helen Thomas. I'm taking Nina Totenberg, Cokie Roberts, Linda Worthheimer, Margo Adler, Amy Goodman...and the female journalists whose names I can't remember. The ones who bucked tradition and patronization and made a difference.

I'm talking about my heros: women who wrote their truth. And it goes beyond journalism. It's Emily Dickenson, George Sand, Virginia Woolfe, Audre Lorde, Adrienne Rich, Emma Goldman.....

And the illiterates, like Harriet Tubman, who spoke, when they couldn't write.

I am home. I'm where I need to be.

I'm doing what's right, what's necessary, what's useful.

I feel my sisters, my mothers, my grandmothers behind me. They are not silent, even in death.

And that empty spot between my shoulders, the one I can't reach, feels comforted.