January 5, 2012

President Barack Hussein Obama II

The White House

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW

Washington, DC 20500

Mr. President,

I am writing this letter in hopes that it will reach your hands. I ask that you read each word carefully and deliberately. What I have to say is important.

In August, 2008, I was fifteen years old. I had just begun my sophomore year of high school and I was enthralled with an idea – that idea was you, sir. I had spent my summer intermittently volunteering for the Denver branch of your campaign, and come August – oh, joy! come August – I was able to volunteer with the nonpartisan group, Rock the Vote, at the Democratic National Convention. I had never seen Denver, the city of my birth, so teeming with people, so teeming with ideas, so teeming with hope.

I skipped school for an entire week to partake in the fervor of change that was humming in the streets. Armed with a few sticks of chalk, I would take to the sidewalks to write out various important statistics – the number of youth without health insurance, civilian deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan, soldiers returning home with post-traumatic stress disorder – and in writing these numbers on the ground, in spending my afternoons crouched on my knees over the hot August sidewalk, in talking with those who inquired about my activities, I felt I was doing something good. As I was not yet of voting age, volunteering was my only means of letting my voice be heard – but I could not wait for the day I would be old enough to cast my ballot in a real, true-blue election.

That day is fast approaching, Mr. President, and I cannot say I feel the excitement I once anticipated. Perhaps it is because I have grown older, my naïveté fast fading, that I no longer feel my voice is as loud as I once thought it to be. This may in part be true, but I tend to think something else is playing a larger part in my growing hopelessness – I am scared.

I am scared of a future dictated by civic actions influenced by immortal corporate persons who are bound by law to do right by their investors no matter the human cost. I am scared of a future chained by debt to such corporate entities thanks in part to enormous student loans and the calculated rise of the cost of living. I am scared of a future in which citizens of the world may be indefinitely militarily detained. I am scared of how such a law (you know the one of which I speak, the one which you regarded with “serious reservations”) may be interpreted by future administrations, particularly if such an administration sees fit to further blur the line between personal belief and civic duty, in which case my atheistic tendencies (and perhaps even this letter) may land me in deep trouble. Frankly, Mr. President, I am scared of a future in which individuals of power continue to make more empty promises to starry-eyed little girls.

I do not mean to sound harsh. I recognize that it takes incredible strength and power to lead a nation, especially one as conflicted as ours. But I implore you, Mr. President, to critically scrutinize your decisions as an individual in the context of the American, and more importantly the human, experience. You are a man of tremendous influence. Look not to others to make change. Look to yourself.

Sincerely,

Katelyn Danielle Foster

Bennington College

1 College Drive

Bennington, VT 05201