Half of America feels gutted right now. The other half
doesn’t get it. They are either crowing ‘I told you so’ or urging us to ‘get
over it.’ They say that this was what they felt like when Obama was elected.
I beg to differ.
The last 24 hours have been rough. One of the worst days of
my life. And in just that short time, the lives of my friends have already been
hit, hard. A mom
who watched as someone yelled “They’re shipping you out of here” to her
brown-skinned girls a few blocks from their school. A Latina woman who spent yesterday
morning sobbing because she had to face cleaning up after the very vocal
Trump-supporting white male bosses. My friend who is a black American doctor
working in Australia – very solid sort, is now in uncharted waters and so
broken. She said, among other things, that she doesn’t know her own skin. Her
husband, an Aussie, broke into sobbing twice yesterday.
These are not news items. Again, these are my friends.
We are lost right now. We don’t recognize our country. We
fear for the world. You may have
disliked Obama, but you didn’t fear for nuclear war. He didn’t show eagerness
for that. His election didn’t cause worldwide panic. Didn’t crash the stock
markets. If you can’t be objective about
that, then ... how can we ever find common ground?
Be kind to others.
We’re still Americans. We’re still human beings, at any rate.
And to those who feel despair, hold on. Light can drive out
hate and divisiveness. It destroys darkness. It’s the only thing that ever
could.
Be there for each other and – because I am at heart a
practical optimist – if you see someone being threatened or bullied in this
Dark New America – be their advocate! Don’t stand silently by when someone is
being victimized. If you cannot confront the abuser, console the victim. A
stranger standing by a victim, engaging them in conversation shows them that
they are not alone. By being silent, we are complicit in their abuse.
If all we have is one another – that is going to be enough.
Stay strong. Take care of yourself. Shine your light. We need it now more than ever.
