I am an American, white, heterosexual woman who has worked tirelessly to advance my education (achieving bachelor's and master's degrees), to advance significantly in my career, to raise two children alone, and perhaps most importantly...to come to believe that I deserve to be treated with respect and justice, and to insist on nothing less.
After learning of the U.S. Presidential election results around 3 a.m., I struggled to find my way to a peaceful state of mind that would allow sleep to come. My thoughts and emotions are running rampant, and I'm trying to organize them into something coherent that I can put into words. This is my attempt.
After learning of the U.S. Presidential election results around 3 a.m., I struggled to find my way to a peaceful state of mind that would allow sleep to come. My thoughts and emotions are running rampant, and I'm trying to organize them into something coherent that I can put into words. This is my attempt.
While I've come to believe that all politicians are corrupt on some level, I do expect any president of the United States to be poised, diplomatic, and to reflect honorable principles of living in his or her words and deeds. Principles inform policies, which create a snowball effect that impacts people's ability to have dignity, freedom, and respect.
But the words, actions, and choices I have observed from Donald Trump have quite often been derogatory, insulting, and oppressive to me and to many others. In 2016, I thought it was no longer socially acceptable to exhibit hatred toward an entire demographic of people. Oh, I'm well aware it still exists, it's just no longer acceptable to blatantly express it, at least not in the part of the state/country where I live! But apparently I was fooling myself by thinking the number of people with those feelings was shrinking and slowly being replaced by a more inclusive, bridge-building, diversity-honoring mentality.
For me, a person's core being is a fusion of their morals and principles of living, and that core being informs their decisions and behaviors. Period. That is why today I feel shock and fear. I'm hit with the undeniable realization that many of the people I interact with every day felt inclined to boost a person with these principles into the ultimate position of power.
I saw a social media post happily proclaiming that "'We the People' have spoken." My immediate next thought was the realization that, yes, we the people have spoken. We have exercised our right to vote and for our opinions to matter. We have chosen Trump. We also chose Barabbas. What do I mean by that? Check out Matthew 27, Mark 15, Luke 23, or John 18 in a Bible, and I think you'll see that I mean sometimes we make huge mistakes we regret for generations, so much so that our ancestors cannot fathom how we could have felt so strongly about something so wrong. I suspect this will be one of those moments in time. I hope and pray I am wrong.
