"...those women who walked instead of riding the bus"

If Dennis Kucinich had been included in yesterday's Democratic presidential candidates' debate, really an exchange of blame and barbs among the truncated field of Clinton, Obama and Edwards, it might have been interesting, or at least useful to a voter interested in assessing the candidates' principles or positions. Instead, I settled for being entertained, if not educated.

Falling on the federal holiday celebrating the birth of the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr., the candidates' words sat in a context of righteousness, protest and activism, with all three competing to offer their version of what Daddy King might have thought of today's political scene, about what it takes to make things right.

As I listened to Obama, I realized that I remain a woman who will walk instead of riding the bus, if riding the bus means supporting an oppressor, contributing to what works against my best interests, feeding the monster. Some people can sell themselves so easily. I might give myself away, but I am not for sale.

To live one's life in a form of protest, making the personal fully political, is a distinct choice. How that choice takes shape -- by exclusion or inclusion -- brings different results.