Living in Richmond, Va., this summer I found myself within a cautionary tale. A city hardly larger than Madison in population but surrounded by four times its population in suburban sprawl, Richmond is a microcosm of some of this country's most stubborn problems. There is an overwhelming sense of political apathy that pervades the small city, a kind of diligent apoliticism.
At the city core, a handful of skyscrapers house predominantly white bankers during the work day, while a few blocks north on Broad Street, pawnshops and hair-weave shops serve overwhelmingly black patrons. Hordes of people, almost uniformly of color, loiter around the bus stop all day, some of them waiting for work buses, others waiting for nothing at all. In this city where African Americans now outnumber Caucasians within the city limits, there is still very little crossover between the two downtown worlds. They are divided by Grace Street, a narrow, empty street that crosscuts downtown. Lined with long-abandoned storefronts, Grace Street has become an impromptu canvas for urban artists. Several windows are painted with depictions of the Richmond bread riots, while anarchist graffiti mark mailboxes and streetlamps. Most of the time, though, the downtown stretch of Grace Street remains eerily empty.
Richmond is home to a marginalized majority, elbowed out of the mainstream economy, routinely ignored by city government and heir to the unpleasant historic underbelly of the antebellum South. It is little wonder the city is plagued by a sense of powerlessness. Voter turnout rates are among the lowest in the country, city council is remarkably static and racial discourse is avoided at all costs. There is a sense of helplessness in the citizens, hopelessness in the politics.
Richmond is only a small-scale model, however. Nationally, the situation is hardly any better. In last year's election debates, it seemed as though even the candidates recoiled from real political discourse. Voter turnout is still frighteningly low, and resentment over the last election is still barely below the surface of national political debate. The majority of the population seems politically depressed, disillusioned and unwilling to go through the motions of true debate.
Madison has a very different energy to it than the rest of the country, a particular rhythm of intellectuals and farmers, students and bums, bus schedules, bicycles and moving water. It is a place where tolerance and diversity are not radical ideas, but hopeful (though often distant) ideals. More importantly, it is an exhaustingly political place.
The great challenge of the coming year, though, is the continued nurture of that determined Madison politicism in an increasingly cynical and demoralizing national political climate. To not shy away from discourse about diversity and inequality, to not segregate ourselves from people unlike ourselves, to subject our ideas to the scrutiny of debate'these are not any easier than they have ever been. But they are necessary to bridge that gap between who we are and who we hope to be, to maintain our community and to fulfill our own responsibility to the future.
