I was abroad on November 8th.
I didn’t watch any news coverage or follow the colors of the states map turning red and blue, little by little. I wasn’t in front of a TV while the news stations scrambled to fill up a full 24 hours of news coverage with random speculation. I was fortunate enough not to experience my excitement and anticipation at finally having a female president gradually turn into a churning sense of dread, rage, hopelessness, and utter disappointment at how low our country has fallen. I was one of the lucky ones.
The overnight bus from Berlin had just dropped me off in front of the Amsterdam bus station, and I was still waiting for the fogginess of sleep lift from my brain. The station was bustling with commuters rushing to get to work, and I was disoriented. When I looked down at my phone and read my mom’s text update on the election, I swear she was playing the most unfunny joke I’ve ever heard. “You may not want to come home. Looking like a Trump White House.” It felt as if I got off the bus and entered into a twilight zone. Still not fully awake and preoccupied with desperately trying to navigate the expansive bus station, I suppose it didn’t register in my head. Instead I replied quickly, “Great. See you in 4 years,” and dismissed the thought, and continued to navigate my way to the hostel.
It wasn’t until now, sitting in an Amsterdam pancake house, alone, watching everyone else in the dining room around me go on with life as if nothing had changed, do I fully grasp the gravity of the news my mom’s texts brought. It is such a strange feeling, being so homesick but so disgusted that you never want to go back to such a place. In this moment, I am utterly alone.
Is this really who the citizens of the United States REALLY voted for? I can’t believe that. My heart feels like it’s been broken by all of the things I was taught to believe in about this “great nation”. I feel betrayed, not only by my government, but by my fellow citizens, if I can call them that.
Although I didn’t read news coverage, I spent most of November 8th discussing American politics and the election with a German man, a German man of Turkish descent, and a Turkish woman. I thought it was interesting that they knew more about our politics than a lot of Americans do, which could be a completely different blog post altogether, and equally as lengthy as this one is becoming. We each had different opinions on the matter of the election and the candidates, but we discussed them openly and respectfully. I wondered why I didn’t have conversations like these in the States; these people seem to be more well versed and passionate about the outcome of our election than we are. What I realize is that we don’t talk about politics with other Americans because their vote actually counts. It’s deeply personal which way they vote, because it affects me, it will affect my family, women, people of color, our friends.
I feel physically sick, so I’m not able to articulate clearly how this makes me feel. White people, is this how you felt when a black man became our president? Is this you lashing out at us? Is it worth it??
