If you turn from me
You darken my sun
You snap that thin thread
I call my horizon
And I'd like to remind you
Of something small
That the rock in this pocket
Could cause your fall
Suzanne Vega / Rock In My Pocket
Y'all. Y'all. Y'ALL! This might very well be the billionth blog post you've read about the mind-numbingly-media-blown-hate-rhetoric-driven-sexist-racist-homophobic-xenophobic-allKINDSOFPHOBIC election nonsense but there is no way on God's green earth that I'm not going to write something.
It was so hard to watch my state turn red so quickly. It was harder still to travel out of my Athens bubble towards friends in the more southern part of the state and see the hateful rhetoric splashed on billboards and homemade yard signs. I spoke with friends there and they are talking about the great divide in families. The fear they now have as a LGTBQ member in a Trump driven country. The fear they have being black. Latino. Muslim. Their reproductive rights are threatened. I have friends of friends that have already been the victims of hate-crimes perpetrated by beings invoking Trump's name. So, don't tell me nothing will really change because it already is changing. So,what do we do now?
To be perfectly honest, I have no idea. But you know what? It'll come. Right now I'm a whirling, grieving, angry, sad mess of emotions. And that's ok. My thought is, if you want to howl at the moon, do it! If you want to march in the streets, do it! If you want to think positive and be inactive for a bit, then do it! It's ok to be afraid. It's not ok to try to eradicate, deport or suppress entire groups of people because you're afraid. To treat people as second class citizens. To forget that we are a nation of immigrants. Y'all, don't let your fear dictate your actions like so many have before.
To me, Trump feels like this Goliath that many in our nation called out for in a time of those consuming fears and I feel like many of us are just standing here with our tiny rocks looking at him in despair but with a never extinguished hope. There will come a time though that we'll take a deep breath and take aim and find his (many, many, many) weak spots. Just FYI, I'm not condoning we actually stone him with rocks. This is all allegory and hidden meaning, ok? We may feel small. We may feel we can't win against this wall (literally and figuratively as it is Trump we're talking about) but we hold within our hands immense power.
Let's never forget the past as we live for today with a vision of the future.
This is explains exactly how I have been feeling, I've been a barrel of emotions all week/weekend.
ReplyDeleteIt's been all the stages of grief over here. I had to take a step back from social media and regroup and take some downtime! And eat. You know, because food is good. :) I know we'll spring back soon!
DeleteI'm still a mess of emotions too... but I admit feeling a liiittle more hopeful about affecting change the past day or two. Possibly very naive but it gives me heart to see Athens springing into action and support, strongly opposing bigotry. Georgia as a red state is always disappointing but Clarke County has a Democrat majority, and Cobb and Gwinnett turned blue this year... small encouragements. We can stand with friends and overcome this!
ReplyDeleteAthens has been AWESOME about starting some real momentum for local changes. And so many people, like yourself, have been reaching out to really foster that sense of community and support. :) Thank you for all your invites and I promise that we'll get together one of these days soon.
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