I woke up and took a deep breath. I experienced that rare flutter that let me know I’d cried in my sleep. All I recall from my dream were the winding wooden stairs I was climbing, and someone shouting, “Come on! Come on!” when I stopped on a landing to look up.
Today’s hero is U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Gael Sullivan. Hope in humanity is alive. There are still people of integrity in high places; people who will uphold the law. However, I see why some people don’t vote; why they see it as a waste of time; why they’re tired of getting their hopes up for a civil nation, and don’t care; why they think evil is winning, and making a mockery of them.
Who would those who succumbed to COVID-19 have voted for? It’s one of many random thoughts I’ve had in the past 24 hours.
I trust God. I believe there are more good people in the world than bad. If I didn’t, I’d be a frightened, inebriated, nervous wreck. I don’t like the tone of my prayers. God knows my heart, so I prayed anyway.
I want the nightmare to end with the installation of a righteous individual, who doesn’t make me cringe, and question the sanity of my fellow citizens.
I want sweeping consequences for the unnecessary suffering and irreparable harm that has been done to so many.
I want justice. I might not get it, but it’s an honorable want, I think.
As my stomach tightened last night with each poll result, I felt compelled to look around; to consider my own circumstances.
This disappointment in America is nothing new. Haven’t we been here before? I am, nonetheless, as in times before, keenly aware of America’s shameful underbelly.
I’m thankful for parents and teachers who loved, schooled, protected, and nurtured me, while thinking deeply, and praying silent prayers.
I’m grateful. I’m safe. My needs are met. I’m in good health. My circle is strong. Why do I care what’s going on out there? I blame my parents. It’s the anxiety of what’s always looming “out there” that I had to really pray about.
Much has changed on America’s surface, but there’s a monster—a beast— that always lingers. There's an angry, hateful, ignorant, delusional, soulless portion of the populace that’s looking for a fight with people they don’t even know, but have been taught to hate—and believe that hate is righteous.
Our nation is suffering and desperate for competent, sane, intelligent, compassionate leadership.
It occurred to me that maybe people don’t really want a leader. They want a distraction; a clown; an instigator; someone who makes them feel superior and smarter; who helps them antagonize, and justifies them terrorizing the people they despise. They want someone to assuage their guilt and shame; someone who represents the worst in them.
I have to admit I’m fascinated by Black and Latino republicans. I wonder what they see when they look at themselves, and what they hear when their leader is talking. What is the operation of their brains that scrambles his words into their affirmations? Is the frustration and futility of playing by the rules (that keep changing) why many Black people have enthusiastically embraced and supported an administration that clearly despises, uses, and mocks them? Is it just easier to join one’s enemy; to pretend; to disparage one’s own? Is it a coping mechanism? Is it desperation for acceptance and approval? Have they cracked? Is the delusion and self-hatred a sign that they’ve gone over the edge? What’s the payoff?
I don’t personally know a single soul in Russia, China, Iraq, or Iran. I don’t know most people here in the US, but I’m resigned now that the greatest possible threat to my physical, mental, and emotional well-being, isn’t over there. It’s always been here. It’s been cultivated and nurtured right here, so that my American experience, though different than that of my ancestors, will always be cloaked in insecurity, inferiority, and fear. It’s not some foreign adversary seeing me as an outsider, a problem, inhuman, and not deserving of rights, privileges or respect, it’s my fellow citizens.
The landslide I envisioned, delivered by a sober, empathetic, wise, just, humane electorate, didn’t materialize. It's much too painfully close. The results mean, either people think the last 4 years have been just fine, there's something sinister about Biden or Harris that isn't widely known, people actually voted for Kanye, racism and sexism is alive and well, or the issue isn't Black and white, it’s green.
I'm not buying the Christian argument at all. Little has taken place in the current administration, in word or deed, that has been even remotely godly, Christian, or Christ-like. The lying, alone, is stunning. The complicity and enabling has been epic. Maybe the 2020 clarity that so many referenced, was the exposure of the thoughts, feelings, actions, alliances, and politics of people we thought we knew.
I had to acknowledge that I was looking at the candidates and this election from my own point of view--Black woman, mother, teacher, former caregiver, Christian, creative, empath. Note to self: Everyone doesn’t think like you, feel what you feel, or see what you see. Experiences shape everyone. What I think is crazy and unacceptable, is quite normal and welcome to others.
I was raised with “the speech”. You know: "Be twice as good; put your best foot forward; follow the golden rule..." blah, blah, blah. I'm not naive. A lot of people spent a lot of time insisting that I be a "good" person; an upstanding citizen, ever on the high road. A “credit to my race”. I don’t want to abandon doing the right thing or following the rules, I’m just keenly aware that there’s a different set of rules, laws, and expectations for me. There would be charges and consequences if I decided to do half of what I’ve witnessed in the past 4 years. I admit it. Last night, I was exhausted with myself for having hope.
America has a history of hypocrisy, domestic terrorism, white supremacy, and legalized oppression. I know that evil exists. Today, I can't help but feel that President Obama's elevation to the highest office in the land, so shook and appalled parts of America, that they would vote for a three-legged blind squirrel before they vote for another person of color (or a friend of a person of color) to lead them. There comes a point when you realize that some people will love and support the source of your greatest fear, anxiety, and pain, even if it is to their detriment; even if it means ignoring their own interests and well-being.
I'm baffled that there is an overwhelming portion of the population that actually wants 4 more years of the shittiest shit-show on Earth. What is it that they don't know? What haven't they seen? What are they being told? What is the payoff, attraction, or appeal? Where have they been? It is unbelievable what people will defend--and with straight faces.
Watching just how backward and wrong things have been is disappointing and discouraging, and then I ask myself, “When has America been truly great--not just for a select few--but for everyone who looks like me?” Just when you think people have matured and progressed beyond racism, bigotry, and hatred, they demonstrate that the goal has always been to indoctrinate every generation so that America's heinous past can persist.
Reducing stress requires looking at things quite differently. I don’t want to become cold and jaded. I just need to be realistic. We don't all like the same things. We're not all affected by the same things. How we were raised plays a part in how we evaluate everything, so does what's important to you.
I get the feeling that there is a real disdain for the elderly and the poor— even that they’re dispensable.
Clearly Black people are not a monolith, but I don't think people have understood that the Latin community isn't either. There are people who immigrated here, who don't want others to do the same--not even if they're from their own country of origin.
Nothing will be a surprise if we just consider where people are coming from. What has happened to them? Are they hurt, bitter angry, troubled? I feel like I'm rambling.
How is the race so close? I suppose I've been observing untenable behavior, criminality, rudeness, arrogance, greed, lawlessness, ignorance, incompetence, lack of empathy and a whole host of other things, and concluded there must be an alternative. I want a leader to be better than I am, not a daily source of embarrassment. I want to have confidence in a leader, and not worry every day about the sinister or self-serving nature of decisions being made.
My heart hurts. The destruction, chaos, and death doesn't seem to matter to many, many people. Why not? People are constantly saying, "We're better than this". Are we? ARE we better?
Maybe not. Maybe this is who we are, and we’re diabolically proud of it.
I have a sudden urge to put “Mary Don’t You Weep” on repeat.
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