Last Tuesday, America saw a glimmer of hope. For Virginians, residents were locked into a promise of change – and not via interlocked pinkies. It was a political promise, one made by Danica Roem, ’06, who secured her seat in the Virginia House of Delegates.
Roem is a Bona’s graduate, and one I was fortunate enough to meet. What’s funny is that I never had a doubt she’d win this election – and that confidence, in a woman I barely know, surfaced within the first five minutes she was in my presence.
As part of my Synapse Matters course assignment – to develop a social media pitch for Roem’s campaign – I was privileged enough to meet her last spring. Roem flocked to campus just to hear our fully developed social pitch, inspired from a Skype chat with her nearly four months prior and from seven hours away.
Needless to say, I was nervous to present our findings and divulge our derived creative tactics. Actually, I was nearly sliding around the classroom in my sweat-lined loafers. Maybe that wouldn’t have been the case if I wore socks that day, but I’m thankful I didn’t; my sockless look was the first point of conversation post-pitch between Roem and I.
She joked, “I knew you were gay because you’re not wearing socks with your loafers,” making light of those sort of casual assumptions others often make. What Roem didn’t know, that sort of lightheartedness was exactly what I needed at that point in my semester – my life, really.
But, see, before our presentation had even started, Roem entered the room with a mission to press our thinking – not just with regards to the campaign we’d developed, but the social outlooks, self-images and worldly assumptions we hold. And she did just that.
As she walked through the door of Murphy 107, she was almost simultaneously sharing sentiments of equity, inclusion and equality’s importance – for each and every human being. She afforded stories of young children citing her messaging as crucial to their own self view and image. She even asked us to consider our own personal struggles – chronic moments of self-doubt – and, in moments, spun them as our greatest strengths.
Having recently come out as a gay man, she convinced me I was valuable – something I now fully believe, but struggled to trust at the time. What Roem didn’t know, I took notes of her words afterward. I reread those words for weeks following her departure for campus; they made more of a difference in my growth than Roem probably knows, and I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s had that experience.
In all the confidence boosts and emotional sentiments, there’s only one thing Roem didn’t harp on: her accomplishments – of which there are many.
Unlike most “politicians,” and I use quotations because Roem simply doesn’t fit the prototype, she focused only on the people she hoped to serve (and now does) – all through the lens of someone who came to understand her very being through determination to overcome undeserved adversity. She’s a champion of the underdog for that exact reason.
Even more interesting, though: She’s able to separate those deep-rooted ties to the marginalized from a number of her other objectives. I think that’s exactly why her words resonated so deeply with me.
Roem cares about the infrastructure, education and job opportunities within Manassas County, the district she represents. And, in many ways, those issues were level to the social changes she wishes to implement in her district.
“This woman clearly can push bias to the side and, even more so, it’s obvious she’s running for the people,” I thought. “She really must see this value in my peers and I.”
To me, it was clear her nearly decade-long career as a reporter for the Gainesville Times birthed that beautiful mastery of throwing bias to the side and think objectively.
And, so, that’s exactly why Roem is the perfect story for a column on practicing the difficult art of objective thought – because it won her an entire political race, one where she (yes, a transgender woman) was positioned directly against delegate Bob Marshall, one of the country’s most conservative politicians and a self-proclaimed “homophobe.”
There’s power to thinking analytically, objectively. Roem is now living, breathing and, even, delegating proof of that.
