My junior year in high school Richard Pryor was on Saturday Night Live as the first guest host. As I recall, he looked at the camera and said “Hope I’m funny.”

I know what he means. I hope that you’re going to read this column. I hope that you’re going to go out of your way from here on out to pick up every copy of YC Magazine so you can read this column.

“Hope I’m interesting.” might be a better way to put it though. You wouldn’t have even glanced at this column unless you cared about public life. So, I guess I had better get about the business of being interesting. Here goes.

The Green Party is centered on a few simple propositions. Everyone has a right to have their say. Everyone should be treated fairly. We must make dramatic improvements in the environment. Non-violence must be the guiding principal of our policies. Money plays too big a role in deciding who runs our government.

That in a nutshell is what the Green Party is all about.

Now, of course any political party might be willing to lay claim to these principals, or at least some of them. This is the reason that some “small ‘g’ greens” prefer to stay inside the Democratic and Republican parties. Some folks would prefer to see some forward movement, no matter how incremental, than take a principled stand they know they will likely lose.

That’s ok too. But that’s not Green.

Kermit the Frog sings “It’s not easy being green.” And while he meant the color green, not a political movement, it’s still a song I think about fondly. In truth, it isn’t easy being Green.

If we Greens are truer to our principals than the other parties, we will win by virtue of standing for the right cause. It might be easy and more immediately successful to work within the structure. But we believe that fundamental changes are needed. If you want something different you must do something different.

Being a member of the Green Party means being willing to do that something different. It means standing up and saying that something is unfair when it is. It means demanding better pollution controls on homes, autos, businesses and industries. It means asking our schools to teach conflict resolution. It might mean asking them to tell the military to do their recruiting somewhere else.

Being a member of the Green Party means demanding answers to questions. Questions about police actions that go over the line. Questions about lies from government nuclear inspectors who are supposed to be our protectors. Questions about tax breaks for international corporations like Tyco right here in York County.

See, being a Green means that you can be quiet, but find it hard to do sometimes. Knowing the human potential, the love within us all, and the glory of the world we all share gives us hope.

And it’s that hope that makes being Green even possible.

Gregg Jocoy is chair of the York County Greens and lives in Fort Mill.