Wednesday, November 9, 2016

can't we all just burn it down?

On the other hand, when geographic lines are not as clear as they may have been at the start of the American Civil War, why the hell should we try to get along at all?

Regardless of the end results of last night's election, fifty milllion (plus) people just voted against Syrian refugees, against women, against people of colour, against the LGBTQ community, against government-funded healthcare, against the rich paying their fair share. They voted for conversion therapy, for trade war, for literal war, for misogyny and racism and so much white privilege that, honestly, I might support so many of my friends who are not white, not straight, not male, in leaving. Go where your pain might lessen. Or stay and fight with those of us white males who love you.

I wrote in favor of coming together late last night because that was the voice I needed in order to relax and to sleep. I put on my "practice reckless optimism" shirt this morning because that is the message I want to put out into the world. But, as I wrote last night, and upon waking this morning, I knew I would write something quite the opposite when I got the chance. I deliberately put away my anger last night because, fortunately, I'm good at compartmentalizing when I need to. Those who are already marginalized, though--including many of my favorite people--I understand that putting away your pain may be impossible. I am sorry.

For those of you who just won:

"Basket of deplorables" is the kind way of describing far too many of you. When some of you still call Barack Obama a Muslim, still call Michelle Obama a man in drag, call liberals evil, assume foreigners dangerous, assume poor to be poor by their own fault, assume that women should shut up and get back in the kitchen where they were when America was great, that black people should get into their inner city hells or find some other country in which to live, you damage the very ideal of what this country should have been. I made a point last night of separating greatness and goodness. America has been for a long time, and still is, great. It has been on track to becoming good and last night you derailed it. Your fear of someone coming for your guns, of someone coming for your religion, of someone coming for your right to speak your bigotry has, at least for now, ruined us.


Now, of course, that system is no longer "rigged", right? Because your people have control of the executive, of both houses of the legislative, and soon probably the judicial. Rigged does not mean that someone you don't like has won. Rigged means the poorest of us lack voice, lack power. Rigged means those marginalized because of their race, their sexuality, their place of birth are sidelined because history is written by the winners and straight white Christian men conquered this land and have laid claim to it as if their very lives depend on it.

So, the rest of us--the marginalized and the white men who do not want power taken through force of hateful rhetoric (or overt violence)--have two options:

1. The dangerous option, because rhetorically and literally it edges into violence, is to make their lives actually depend on it. Now, I do not mean that we bring it to violence. You need not take a life to make a life difficult. Republicans spent the past eight years hindering Democrat's political efforts, and far too often it worked more than it failed. And, when folks pronounce the race card expired this morning, we have driven ourselves backward. That is what they wanted. That is what they achieved. So, we do everything we can destroy them.

2. And, because that is edging too far toward violence (against the people who have all the guns, too), there is the more mindful approach. Keep speaking. Keep protesting. Keep demanding the right to personal choice, the right to immigrate, the right to be gay or transgender without being hated, the right to be black and walk down the street at night without being suspect, the right to have a vagina and a voice. Donald Trump is a populist. Show him what the populace really is. Show him the power of varied opinions, of varied backgrounds, of more than just one and definitely more than two genders, of numerous races and cultures and nationalities and show him that embracing a dangerous extreme only pushes the knife into the wound in the heart of this country further.

Wound or heal. Metaphorically. And do it so very loudly.

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