“My mom told me when I was a little kid that I could do anything I wanted with my life and I really took it seriously,” said Midge Potts to a small gathering of Guilford students in Bryan Jr. auditorium. “I took her seriously when I decided to become a woman, and I took her seriously when I decided to run for congress.”
Potts came to Guilford on Nov. 15, brought by GPeace, Guilford’s peace oriented club. She is a 37-year-old transgender social justice activist who ran for congress in southwestern Missouri’s Aug. 8 Republican primary. Potts is a Persian Gulf War veteran and served on the USS Yosemite as Mitch Potts, a male. After being injured by evaporated mercury in an engine room aboard the ship, Potts was offered an honorable discharge and became more active in politics.
“This political system is such a huge joke that I thought I ought to put the exclamation point on it,” said Potts on her Myspace page. “I am tired of hearing everybody say ‘there’s nothing we can do.'”
She based her campaign on three goals: to create a balanced budget, to set term limits in the Constitution, and to enforce direct democracy. Potts ran a creative campaign, connecting with people through recycled signs and folk music.
“I am not limited by preconceived notions of what the media says I should do to run a campaign,” Potts said. Although Potts lost the election, she doesn’t view it as a defeat.
“I could win, just by running for office, by raising the vibrations in the area I was running in,” Potts said.
Potts now continues to spread her message in every way possible. Traveling around the country and talking to schools is just one of them.
“It is important (to hear what Potts has to say) because we are a school based on Quaker values, with a large interest in peace and diversity,” said sophomore Emily Warren, vice president of GPeace.
Potts has also learned to send her messages in creative ways. She has become an infamous “woman in pink,” known to pop up behind politicians, posting her opinions on the newscaster’s screen. From a sign reading “I have nothing to hide . except the truth,” behind Alberto Gonzales, former U.S. Attorney General, to “Impeach Bush” behind Valerie Plame, former CIA undercover operative, she has successfully made her voice heard while remaining completely silent.
It would be wrong to say, however, that Potts always keeps quiet. She was arrested for interrupting the U.S. Senate chamber with her opinion on the Iraq war and then stating “I yield the remainder of my time back to the committee.” She was found guilty by a jury yet doesn’t seem to regret speaking her mind.
“If we have something to say to the government, then we should be able to,” Potts said. “If this really is a government of the people, then people shouldn’t be afraid to be autonomous.”
Potts continues to fight for her cause and plans to run for Congress again in 2008 as a Green Party representative. She also has a Sundance film coming out entitled “Citizen Potts.” One of her main goals, however, is to get youth more involved in politics, which is one of the reasons she’s speaking on college campuses.
“I was hoping her passion could spark some interest on Guilford’s campus (and) maybe eliminate some apathy,” said sophomore Airlie Parham, president of GPeace, who met Potts last summer in Washington D.C.
“The biggest thing young people can do is talk to each other,” Potts said. “Your whole future depends on the decisions these guys are making now.”
Potts spoke about the beginning of American politics and the formation of the U.S. Constitution. She quoted Thomas Jefferson and discussed how his words are still relevant today in that our government isn’t really “of the people.”
“No society can make a perpetual constitution or even a perpetual law,” said Jefferson in a letter written to James Madison over 200 years ago. “The earth belongs always to the living generation.”