When I was in high school, a boy in my class asked me out on
a date. He shared a car with his brother, so he asked if we could go on the
date in my car instead. When I told my dad about this, he asked, “Are you going
to let him drive?”
“No,” I said. “It’s my car.”
“Well,” he said. “You don’t have to be such a femi Nazi
about it.”
I am not that old, invisible audience. That did not happen
in the 50’s – it happened in the late 90’s.
It wasn’t that long ago that I was told I should let a man
drive my car like a good little girl, but I was still as surprised as anyone
when Trump won the election. Since that night, I have been reeling. I have felt
isolated, betrayed, and alone, because alone is the place I go when I’m most
afraid. There’s no one there to help you,
the most terrified part of my reptile brain tells me. You’re the only one you can count on.
Fear does that to me. Fear makes me feel like I am standing
in a rainstorm, screaming for help, but no one can hear me. Fear makes me feel
like I’ve lost my goddamn mind – like there’s no one else out there that feels
like me, understands how I feel, or will stand beside me in my darkest moments.
But I’m not alone. The number of people – to say nothing of our electoral system – who voted for
Clinton has outstripped the number who voted for Trump. I have talked to many
friends and heard from many others who feel the same. The people in the podcasts I listen
to; all my go-to sources of inspiration, strength and courage voted the same
way that I did. When I look at the people who voted for Trump, I know that a
lot of them voted for him because they did not feel that Clinton and the Democratic
Party had their best interests at heart. I hear them say that they did not vote
for Trump because of his racist, xenophobic and misogynist opinions and agenda.
The trouble I face with these voters is that they decided they could overlook
those parts of his personality. It scares me.
I was living in Spain on 9/11. I had just arrived; I spent
almost another year outside the U.S. before I came back to a country locked
into its own fear. During that time abroad, I made friends with several Muslims, who
experienced open acts of racism because they shared a religion with the
terrorists on those planes. I became better friends with two of them than I did
with most of the Spaniards in the residence hall where I lived. A lot of times,
I felt I had more in common with them than Spaniards, many of whom made fun of
me because I didn’t speak the language well and couldn’t communicate my needs,
my emotions, or the fact that I was a real, three-dimensional human being.
Nevertheless, what I experienced studying abroad is nothing compared to what
many Americans and immigrants have experienced here in the U.S.
I am terrified, but I also have some hope. I have hope because
I came back to the U.S. in 2002 feeling like everyone had
lost their minds. Right before I left Spain, I met an American woman on Fourth
of July. My friend asked her if the country agreed with what George W. Bush was
doing – at that point, weapons of mass destruction were still being cited as
the reason the U.S. was invading other countries. No, the woman said. We don’t
agree with him, but we’re behind him because he’s our president. Hearing that made me feel like I'd lost my mind.
The dissension I see – the people passing around donation suggestions for civil right defense groups; the
rallies; the protests and the marches – they give me hope. I’m not alone in my
fear, and I’m also not standing alone in a thunderstorm, wondering why no one
else can hear me. There are many of us. We’re not interested in having a
country that gives into its fear and takes it out on others. Although I don’t
think making it an us versus them issue is ultimately going to heal the
country, the anger in me is welling up. I am fucking pissed that a man who brags about grabbing women by the pussy was
voted into the White House. I am pissed that he just demanded an apology from a
multicultural theater group who respectfully used their first amendment right
to free speech to ask the soon-to-be-vice-president to hear them. I am pissed
we seem to have taken a huge step back in time. And I’m scared. But I’m not
alone.
I felt like I betrayed myself after 9/11, when I didn’t use
the voice I had to speak out about what I saw in a bigger way. I only talked
about my experience abroad and the pervasive fear I felt when I got back to the
States with people who I thought agreed with me. This time, however, it’s been
boiling in my gut, and I cannot keep it to myself. Sure, there are people who
say it better than I do; there are people who have more followers and readers.
There are people who stand to lose a lot more than me. But for the record: I’m
here, I am not ok with this, and I’m saying it out loud.
Love and pissed kisses
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Morgan