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 5th 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!
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