I think I'm starting to get numb to all the political news coming at me from all directions. Of course I know this is a pivotal place to be when you are trying to resist, so I take a break from it all. And try to regroup and remember a time when I didn't feel like so many lives were in danger.
I don't make enough to donate money, and frankly I work so many hours in a week that I don't have much free time either. But I try to engage people of different minds into what I hope to be intelligent debate. I have tried so many ways. And I always get hit with anger and defensiveness. I know from my broken heart conversations that these emotions usually mean I've hit a nerve. So I brave on, with what I hope to be non name calling questions and facts. Thing is, I can't call him by his name. So I make fun of it. Like they do and did to my President and my candidate. But when I do that, they say I'm immature because I'm name calling. And yet I haven't called them a snowflake or a libitard or many of the more threatening things I've heard. Which to my mind is name calling as well. Perhaps they don't see it or think it's deserved. And perhaps they are right. So I've even tried just using pronouns and they still call me names. In my heart of hearts I want to believe that most people are good. But I'm starting to doubt that.
Too many days I see his voting demographic being just downright mean. And It's almost always on line. Only once have I had an altercation with a middle aged, white male, that I felt if I didn't back down first I might be in danger. So, of course I did. A lifetime of looking down and not making eye contact, and being submissive, has made this easy for me. Almost automatic. But then there is that tiny voice inside me that screams to be heard. That voice that makes me want to stand up for my rights, and protect those I see who don't have the white privilege that I have. Poor white people just don't get it. They feel downtrodden and forgotten. But even they have more built in rights than most people of color, just because of their skin tone. It's like a badly written sci-fi novel of the future gone mad. Except it's real and it's always been here.
I saw a video the other day that discussed if bigotry wasn't just another form of PTSD or mental illness. And it struck a cord within me. The symptoms they feel are similar, but it never occurred to me before to make a racist (and we're all a little bit racist) human. It never occurred to me that if I could get them to talk about their fears, that maybe they wouldn't be so prejudiced anymore. And I was successful at helping my own mother get rid of a lifetime of brainwashing from her parents. She went from hating all people of any color other than white, to accepting the fact that it was ok to have people of color as friends in your life. I know, I know, that doesn't sound like success, but for the daughter of a man who was head of the KKK in his small town in Nebraska, it was huge. She tried to raise me the way she had been raised. With all her fears and in some areas she succeeded. I'm still afraid of vast open waters, like the middle of the ocean; and big dogs. But not people with different melanoma. She never allowed me to have any friends of color and when she found out I had one, she would not allow me to play with them again. And the one time she found one in her home, she embarrassed me by kicking him out. I was 17 at the time and it was a huge wake up call to me to what I had to do.
I wish I could take more credit for her transformation. But I can't remember doing anything more than standing my ground and staying true to my vision of the world that all men, and women are created equal. Perhaps it was my example that made her realize that her lifetime of fears were just that. Fear. That she really had nothing to be afraid of from ALL of any race. Or ALL of any religion. Or ALL of any group of people. Sure there are always going to be a bad apple here and there. But if we are going to get through to them, we can't be like them. We can't fight and argue with belittling names or tone. In fact we have to treat it like any illness. You wouldn't attack a family member or friend with an illness about that illness would you? So we can't do that in any debate or discussion with a bigot either.
I know my friends of color will read this and say, 'So what else is new? We've had generations of this and we're still repressed.' I know, and I wish this thought coming from a white, middle aged, female wasn't a revelation to white people. But I think for some, maybe most, it is. I think for the good ones out there, we really wanted to believe that things in this country were getting better after MLK and Milk. (Martin Luther King, Jr and Harvey Milk if you are like my mom and don't know who I'm talking about). But we were blind. We got comfortable and forgot to keep resisting with our brothers and sisters until the ideas of change became real change. And now a generation of hate and fear has taken control of our government. And I feel afraid for my rights for the first time. I don't just empathize with my friends of color, I feel some of the same fears as they have had to live with for generations. And my fears aren't as paramount as theirs. Because I'm white. Most white people just don't get that.
I'm glad my mom didn't live to see this day. But I wonder if she would have stood up with me and marched or if him being in the white house might have made her feel like she now had a reason to hate and be heard and counted among the those like her dad. I know what I hope she would have done. And I guess I'm glad I don't have to see it. . .in case.
All I know for sure is my grandfather would not have liked me or been proud of me, and that feeling is mutual.
Cheers
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