This gentleman in the video below, in just a few minutes says some of what I’ve written over the last 8 years. I write a lot, lots of words. I share a very small % of what I actually write. What I’ll ever do with all of it, I don’t know. There are enormous emotion this week among those in my world who are like minded. Want to know what I’ll bet on? That we won’t be storming the capital in January.
After this post I’m taking another break. When, if I come back, I will expect my Friends number to have dropped. Go ahead, unfriend and block me because I won’t. You’ll have to do that. As much as I absolutely disagree with your choice, I know it was your choice and for now we still have a choice. We all deserve security, opportunity and freedom. We also deserve Black female excellence over white male mediocracy every day.
I see the harm that we have allowed and passed as acceptable. I see the harm that will come. Harm that I truly hope doesn’t touch any of you. I just doubt that it won’t impact all of us. So much at risk.
If you feel any of this harms you, please check in with your Black, Brown and LGBTQIA+ friends. Just don’t ask them to help you feel better. Consider their past and now their future. Make sure they are okay.
“What happened to the notion of not calling people names and being nice to one another? Just asking…”. Yes, I will ask this for her, for me and you, over and over and over again.
May you be safe. May you be happy. May you be healthy. May you live with ease.
I try to analyze my tears. Maybe I shouldn’t. You tell me. Or don’t.
I feel, in my opinion of course, it is a loss of a hope that we were different. Not in the way you think but in our ideals, our thoughts around morality, ethics our diversity, and as a friend asked a few weeks ago, “What happened to the notion of not calling people names and being nice to one another? Just asking…”.
Yes, I think I will forever be asking that question because of who asked it of me. Someone I’ve known since kindergarten who is a supporter of the candidate re-elected.
Some days I feel like the conservative. When you try to understand something that has no logic, no reason, no sense, there is no understanding. For some reason, this also made me think of Scrooge near the end of “A Christmas Carol” when he says to his nephews wife, “Can you forgive a pig-headed old fool for having no eyes to see with, no ears to hear, all these years?”. They have no eyes to see, no ears to hear. They choose to not see and hear.
Why do tears flow on this day? Is it because for years I was able to hold them, to keep them to myself and not let others see them? And can no longer do that? Is it a collective overwhelming loss, my parents, their decline, making that decision for them to leave their home for a small room in a facility because it was safer? Is it because of the choices my brother made late in life, with no explanation, with the result of a long incarceration? How to analyze the collective impact of all of that? What did one mean to the other? Where does it all sit? Sadness. Anger. Grief. Where does one put that?
And now the reality that friends and more Americans saw a better choice, yes in my opinion, in indecency over decency, dishonor over honor, disrespect over respect, division over unity, name calling and disparagement. White male mediocrity rather than black excellence, education, experience, decency and fairness.
White male mediocrity, how sad for all of us. This is who we are. Racist, misogynistic and fearful of who we could be, so we embrace the worst of us. We embrace the past, what we think is a safety when it is far from it.
Waking up this morning to the reality, while expected, wasn’t welcome. Like a child covering my eyes to not see, I changed the channel to news to see the lower 3rd and what news it would reveal, ‘re-elected”.
Through some tears I opened Flip book on the iPad for a distraction. First thing I read after seeing the results;
“This puzzles Angulimala. He asks for an explanation. The Buddha replies, “Angulimala, I stopped committing acts that cause suffering to other living beings a long time ago. I have learned to protect life, the lives of all beings, not just humans. Angulimala, all living beings want to live. All fear death. We must nurture a heart of compassion and protect the lives of all beings.”
I fully admit to waffling back and forth. Sorting through my emotions, feeling what in my heart believes people voted for and voted against. Yes, emotions and feelings. Not ashamed to say that. And I’ll say it again, they voted for white male mediocracy, racism, misogyny and against black excellence, educated and experience.
