Not My President, Not My America

The first couple of days, I was stunned. I was hurt and I was disgusted. I totally underestimated the true amount of racism and misogyny present in the hearts of Americans and I had thought that somehow this candidate would not be elected.

I saw the amount of hate and vitriol aimed at the liberal candidate and I could not envision that that many people had been swayed and actually believed all the lies that had been perpetrated against her. I thought people were smarter than that but one by one, they showed me that they weren’t.

Now I’m just angry. If I read one more post saying they won’t unfriend someone on Facebook because of how they voted; one more saying we should now all accept the results quietly and get along; one more saying how disappointed they are that people are protesting I just might scream.

What kind of sanctimonious hypocritical mealy-mouthed unrealistic foolishness is this?? Do you really understand why people like me are so angry and hurt?

Let’s analyze this.

This candidate ran on a platform of racism, misogyny, xenophobia – oh, yes the big words. Let’s say it like he would – this campaign was based on hate and anger and fear.

He saw that most white people are racist at the root despite what they may say and think and he played on that. Did you ever look at any of those recordings of his rallies where his supporters were openly calling people nigger, were assaulting people of color and advocating for a race war? Were you disappointed then? Did you speak up?

I didn’t think so.

You want a wall, don’t you? You want Muslim people deported and banned. You want immigrants to leave our shores.  Let’s clarify – just the immigrants who aren’t white. The rest can stay, right? Uh huh.

You hate Mexicans and want them to leave – even if it means splitting up their families.

You don’t care that black people are being killed in record numbers by nervous cops who should never have been given a gun in the first place. It didn’t matter when the CIA said that there were lots of white supremacists joining police departments all over the country and warned that it would be a problem. It didn’t matter to you that they wanted the right to beat and shoot us on sight, for no good reason except that they could. You didn't understand that Officer Bob was your friend and not ours. He was afraid of us and killed us in his fear. But you sympathized with him, gave him a paid vacation and vilified us as habitual lawbreakers and criminals. Thugs, you called us. You ignored our fear and our protests. 

No, you wanted us to obey at all times and not run from them even though we were terrified.  

All the years we tried to tell you that we were suffering from racism, you responded with amazement.

“Now? In 2016? How is this still happening?”

You tried to tell us it was our imagination, that we were being too sensitive, that we overreacted….basically that it was all our fault. You tried to explain that he was basically a good guy and that racist joke he told was all in fun.

You didn’t believe us.

You were all up in your feelings about abortion and morality and couldn’t support her. While you are damning a woman’s right to choose, did you do anything to help a woman in distress about pregnancy? Did you help a poor family struggling? Did you adopt any of the thousands of unwanted children in foster care? Did you even donate a dime to help foster children?

No. You supported laws that denied families in distress funding from the government. You didn’t want them to get assistance or food stamps or WIC to support that baby your beliefs demanded she have even when she knew she couldn’t support that child.

You knew she couldn’t afford childcare but you didn’t care. You didn’t think she deserved a dime. You didn’t want to help her. You didn’t even want her to have a living wage after she got the job you insisted she get.

Did you care about the millions of families living in poverty? No.

You’re ok, right?

Hypocrites.

You believed all the lies about the one candidate who wanted to help women and poor families. She fought for 30 years to help all the while facing the most onerous hatred anyone has ever had to deal with. She didn’t quit. She stood tall and took it. You hated her while turning a blind eye to the truths about him.

You thought your whiteness should have given you the keys to the kingdom and when the economy tanked you blamed us. Did you stop and think that the guy who owned the company where you worked was the one to blame?

He decided that you weren’t worth the salary he was paying you and realized he could cut corners if he moved to another country where he could pay his employees a fraction of what he paid you.

Were you mad at him?

What about the one who saw a chance to make even more money if he created a company helping American companies move to other countries, cutting their costs and helping them to make more money for the CEO’s.

No, you weren’t mad at him. You elected him governor of Illinois.

You blamed brown people for your loss of jobs. You blamed affirmative action. You didn’t understand that we all deserve a piece of that pie. You didn’t care. You saw every advance by a person of color as taking something from you and your hate simmered. We all wanted the same thing – a decent living for us and our families but you demonized us to make you feel better for your bitter feelings towards us.

Now you want us to give him the respect you denied the past administration. Leaders of the Republican party stood together the night President Obama was elected and conspired to ensure he only had one term and that they were going to obstruct everything he tried to do. They shut the government down. Where was your outrage then?

If you had so much respect for the country and how it works, you should have been enraged. You should have wanted those folks gone.

No. You voted them in office again so they could keep obstructing.

Were you outraged at the disrespect he got in office? Did you cringe when he was called a liar during the State of the Union address or did you silently applaud the classless moron who did it? You know you wished you were that brave, didn’t you? Admit it.

And when all this birther nonsense came up, were you incensed that someone would do this to the President? You know you weren’t. You started to wonder yourself, didn’t you?

You know you passed some of those memes and insults against him and his family in your email and probably posted a few on Facebook. You laughed. You thought it was funny and when there was pushback, you cried out, it was just a joke!

We were being too sensitive. Again.

Now that you have elected a racist, misogynist, proven liar with no experience and with barely a 5^th grade vocabulary to office, you want us to treat him with respect and dignity. The same respect and dignity you denied President Obama for 8 years.

You see, it isn’t that we hate him so much though most of us do. It’s that you elected him knowing how he was and you shared his feelings. He speaks his mind, you said. He said what you didn’t have the nerve to say is what you meant.

There were several incidents of white people emboldened by his hateful rhetoric who thought they could walk right up to us and insult and attack us. They said that if he was elected they could get rid of us. They threatened us if he didn’t win. They walked around with guns trying to intimidate us. Did you care? You probably didn’t even see the videos.

“I don’t like stuff like that! It’s probably staged!” you said as you hurriedly passed by it.

You wished the black people you knew were not so focused on race and that we could all just laugh together at the videos of what your cats were doing. This other stuff just bothered you and you didn’t want to deal with it.

You didn’t have to.

We do. It’s part of our reality.

You thought our protests against police brutality were wrong and that we should be grateful we were allowed to live and work here in this country that hated us so much that they passed laws to make sure we couldn’t live where we wanted, work where we wanted, love who we wanted and do what we wanted.

Oh, you fussed, that was a long time ago! It’s not like that anymore. Things have changed.

Yes, there has been some movement but not enough and this is true for women as well as people of color. We remain woefully backwards in those areas.

We are angry. We are hurt. We are disappointed. You elected a man who stands for everything we don’t.

What about the peaceful Muslims who live here? My brother is a Muslim and he lives in the South. I fear for him every day.

What about the gay people who only want to live in peace together as a family?

What about the poor families who struggle to survive on a minimum wage job?

What about the senior citizens who have to live on the pittance of Social Security each month?

What about the hungry families?

What about people who are homeless because there is practically no affordable housing? How is a family living on $7 a hour supposed to pay the skyrocketing rents these days?

The gentrification that is driving poor people from their homes so that rich white people can build luxury apartments with their Starbucks and Trader Joe’s next door?

What about the gutting of the Civil Rights Act that allowed gerrymandering and closing of driver license offices so that people of color would have a harder time getting the identification so that they could vote? Or the polling places closed so that it would be harder for them to even get to vote?

All these things are what we are concerned about and this new president doesn’t give a damn about. And what hurts is that all you that voted for him apparently don’t care either. Your vote for him was an affirmation of his policies and let us all know where you stand with us.

Some of you want to act shocked that we feel this way. You don’t want to hear this. You want us to be submissive and not speak of our pain and hurt.

Our grandparents had to do that. They feared lynching and loss of their livelihood and more if they spoke up. We don’t fear that. We are tired of being gracious and forgiving. We are going to give this man the same respect you gave President Obama. You just have to deal with it.

You don’t want to lose friends? You have. And unless you understood the things your black and brown and gay friends feared, you weren’t really their friends anyway.

You want us to give him a chance? When he already let us know what he thinks of us and what he wants to do?

They are already salivating at finally being able to dismantle a law that granted insurance to millions of people. Without it, people will die. I’ll say that again:

PEOPLE WILL DIE.

Do you care? No. You just didn’t want a penny of your money helping someone less fortunate.

And you wonder why we are angry.

We will not lie down and take it anymore. This is the America you voted for. You wanted a change – now you have it.

Enjoy it!