There is so much I am feeling right now as I scroll through social media trying to grapple with last night’s election results. I am at a loss. I do not have enough words to describe how I am feeling. I am angry; I am ashamed; I am terrified; I am sad; and I am hurt. I am angry that people would vote for someone who sets our country back 50 years (or more), who is outwardly racist and sexist and anti-immigrant and anti-LGBTQ+. I know and love people who identify with all of these communities and today I cry in solidarity with them. I am ashamed, as someone who often travels internationally, to say that I am from the United States. I am ashamed to represent a country that just elected this man as our president. I don’t know how to talk to the young people I work with and explain to them (many who are not yet old enough to vote, but also represent many minorities, LGBTQ+, immigrants, etc.) that our country doesn’t to seem value them as I do. I am terrified as a woman and as someone who feels so strongly about social justice to have a rapist and misogynist and sexist as president. I do not feel safe. I realize that I have a lot of privileges as a white, straight, cis-gendered, able-bodied female, and yet I still do not feel safe. I cannot begin to comprehend how people who identify as minorities, LGBTQ+, trans, disabled, or anything else deviating from his ideals are feeling right now. I am hurt that people voted for him because that means that they do not value diversity, they gave into the hatred and the fear that his campaign produced. They fear what’s different than what they know.
And I feel sorry for them. I have had the immense privilege to be able to get to know and love people from all walks of life. I have come to learn that our differences are truly unifying, and what bring us together in so many amazing ways. I have learned that differences in identity, opinion, and perspective, are what make our world and lives so much richer and so much more beautiful. I wish I could walk Trump down the streets of a small town in Panama and introduce him to one of the host families that so graciously took in a youth from the US this summer. I wish he would sit at their dinner table and listen to their stories, really listen to what they had to say. I wish I could have him come listen to the youth I work with here in the US, and hear their stories as well. Because then, maybe he would understand that the world is not full of hate and fear, but it is so amazingly beautiful in its diversity. I wish I could take all of the people who voted for him and give them a hug.
To my brothers and sisters who are scared and hurt and sad and angry, to my brothers and sisters who feel lost, to my brothers and sisters who identify as minorities, LGBTQ+, immigrants, trans, or disabled: I cry in solidarity with you today, I bleed and I hurt with you today. But I ask one thing: let us show them that love is powerful. Let us not allow this fear and this hurt perpetuate any longer. Let us not be quiet and submissive. Let us roar in the face of fear, let us attack this new challenge with open arms and let us love each other and everyone else until we get the revolution we want, and need, and deserve. Let us take this opportunity to show ourselves that there is still good in the world. Let us be compassionate and empathetic. We cannot sit by and let this happen any longer, but we also cannot attack with the very thing that led him to power. We must be better than that. So get angry and get sad and get scared and get overwhelmed, and let those feelings fuel a fire. Let us fight and let us love and let us not forget why we came here.
And with that, I want to leave you with a poem I read to my AMIGOS trainers at our meeting last night. In light of the election I thought it was appropriate, and also reassuring.
Human Family
By: Maya Angelou
The variety of our skin tones
can confuse, bemuse, delight,
brown and pink and beige and purple,
tan and blue and white.
I’ve sailed upon the seven seas
and stopped in every land,
I’ve seen the wonders of the world
not yet one common man.
I know ten thousand women
called Jane and Mary Jane,
but I’ve not seen any two
who really were the same.
Mirror twins are different
although their features jibe,
and lovers think quite different thoughts
while lying side by side.
We love and lose in China,
we weep on England’s moors,
and laugh and moan in Guinea,
and thrive on Spanish shores.
We seek success in Finland,
are born and die in Maine.
In minor ways we differ,
in major we’re the same.
I note the obvious differences
between each sort and type,
but we are more alike, my friends,
than we are unalike.
We are more alike, my friends,
than we are unalike.
We are more alike, my friends,
than we are unalike.
Adventures in the World 