A Sister Down but Not Out: Trump Supporters and Me
The results of this election have evoked a range of emotions. While I can say that they are complex and intense, I can also say that they do not include hate for the supporters of the president elect. My emotions can be boiled down to feeling punched in the stomach by neighbors, colleagues, classmates, religious communities and sometimes even friends. While they may have laughed with me over an anecdote about a child in my family, prayed with my religious community during difficult times, accepted healthcare, or professional assistance from me or someone like me, coached my children or sent their kids to folks like me for coaching, many of them did something that has been hard to understand in the face of what I thought was our relationship as fellow citizens.
They gave a pass to a man who systematically denied housing to people who looked like me. Hell, it could have been me or one of my relatives. They gave a pass to a man who said a judge born in Indiana who was commended for his work against drug cartels could not do his job because his grandparents were not born here. They gave a pass to a sixty year old man who bragged about grabbing women’s genitals without their permission. They gave a pass to a man who hired a CEO who heads a network that routinely promotes white supremacist vitriol and has attacked Jewish journalists with statements about putting their children in ovens. They gave a pass to a man that permitted a picture of himself smiling next to a meme that has been given the same status as a swastika by the anti-defamation league to be circulated throughout the world. This sincerely makes me wonder about two essential questions. The first is whether they ever really bought into the whole “liberty and justice for all” thing in the first place. The second in many ways is the more important. If they gave a pass for all of these things, what will they give a pass for over the next four years?
No, I do not hate them, but I do feel terrorized by their choices. Perhaps that has been one of the desired secret outcomes all along. Some of them may have thought that I and those like me have become too comfortable at the table. We’re acting too entitled to our seats. Or may-be they were okay with just me, but now they feel there are too many more like me. Walking with heads high, seeking equal pay, driving expensive cars, putting our children in the same schools as theirs, or sometimes even better ones, all while requesting accommodations for equity. There just might be a desire to push me back into a more deferential position. One where I don’t ask questions and am so grateful to be at the table I don’t make waves. It seems like for some of them, part of the intention is to scare me back into what they perceive to be my place. Thinking that if I go back, American will go back to some idealized state of greatness.
Well if that is their intention, it’s not working on me. Notice I said terrorized not terrified into submission. My ancestors have a long history of surviving and thriving in a country where a significant portion of the citizenry either hate us, feel we’re inferior or both. You could even say we are experts in this area. It appears that we are on the precipice of a neo reconstruction era. The removal of the voter rights act, rises in voter suppression, the killing of unarmed men, state sponsored poisoning of our children, and violent attacks against African American religious institutions. We rose during similar periods in the past and we will rise now.
So while there is call for alarm and action, I would like to state again that I do not hate the supporters of the president elect, nor do I write this expecting explanations of them or from them. I write this to crystalize my thoughts and to emphasize something to folks like myself. Yes, we have painfully been pouched in the center of our beings, but it’s not the first time, and we have not been knocked out. History has taught us that we can take a punch and come back stronger. Some of us may have been caught off guard by the number of fellow Americans who were willing to look past racism and sexism, but now we know. Hit us once shame on them, Hit us twice…….
