One of the greatest regrets of my childhood is that I did
not stand up to bullies. I did not stand up for my special needs brother. I did
not stand up for the kids being tormented over their father’s suicide. I did
not stand up for myself. I regret that, but I can only change my future, not
the past. However, that regret causes me to reject all this talk about healing for
the good of the nation and getting along with the deplorables. They are out
there now, on every social media platform bullying. If this were a sports game,
they would be called out for their despicable behavior and unsportsmanlike
conduct, but they were bullies to start and that will not change just because
they won. There are already instances of women in head scarves being attacked,
women on public transport being grabbed by the pussy, marches of the KKK and
Trump hasn’t even taken office. I will not play nice and pretend that
everything is all right, because it isn’t. My America isn’t dead. By popular
vote, it isn’t even defeated. I will call out the bullying where ever I see it.
I will do my best to stand by any minority.
Yesterday
in my son’s gymnastic class, his teacher, a wonderful woman who happens to be a
person of color, was almost breaking down and had to continually paste a smile
on her face so the little children wouldn’t understand how scary the world has
suddenly become. I wanted to help her, to reach out, but I felt helpless. The
best I could do was to send my son in to give her an extra hug. That was it.
That small thing was all I felt capable of doing. So to my minority friends and
even minorities I don’t know yet, please let us know what we can do to help.
The small things. The everyday things. You have to understand that so many of
us are stuck in this limbo of wanting to help, but not wanting to be
patronizing. Not knowing what we can do to help you as the individual. I wish
there was a symbol I could wear to show you that I am on your side. If you need
someone to walk with you through a threatening situation. If you need someone
to smile at you because we are all humans. If you just need a hug. If you need
someone to tell someone else to just shut the fuck up. If you need a sidekick
for a little paint ball practice on people wearing long white sheets. I am that
person.
I’ve
had several people tell me to just chill. Our government is built as a system
of checks and balances, so Trump can only do so much damage. But they are
wrong. With both the house and senate in republican control and the current
republican’s refusal to even consider a judge for the Supreme court until a new
administration can appoint someone of their choosing, there is no balance.
There is no check. The damage this administration will do to our country,
socially and economically will reach far into our future. People will suffer
and die because of this administration. Don’t believe me? The attacks have
already begun. And when Trump trashes Obamacare, there will be many people with
pre-existing conditions who will die because they can’t get medical treatment.
It’s only the tip of the iceberg.
For a brief time this year, I
entertained a hope that rape culture that exists in this society would get the
proper attention it deserves. I hoped that when my precious daughter goes to
college, the statistic where 1 in 5 girls are sexually assaulted in college
would have dropped, even a little. Maybe instead of a 20% chance she will be
raped, it would only be 10%. (Isn’t it ironic that a mother hopes for a 10%
chance her daughter will be raped.) But this will not happen now. Things will
get worse before they get better, if they ever get better. How will a man who
regards his own daughter as a piece of ass ever protect mine?
I am not going to talk about the
damages he will do to the minority members of our community (others will say it
better than I), but they will be as far reaching into the future as well. Even
if he is unable to pass the laws he would like, his attitude will give license
to all those deplorables to act without fear of consequence.
I will do my best to fight this on
every level, but in an attempt to take a step back and put this all in
perspective, to view these horrible things as ephemeral, temporary and passing,
I came to an eye opening realization. They ARE only temporary. We as a society
can change it all back. We can fight it. We can reverse the laws. It will take
time. And people will suffer abuse. Some will have their lives irrevocably
changed. Some people will die. And my heart bleeds for them. For us. For my
children. But this deplorable social intolerance will pass. We will change it
back. We will crush it.
But… and here is the real
revelation…we will not be able to fix the damage the Trump administration will
do to our natural places and to our planet. Once a park is plowed under to make
a golf course, you can’t ever bring it back. Once all the bees are dead and our
agricultural industry is crippled, you can’t bring them back. Once the sea
levels have risen and flooded our coastal cities, (including Norfolk, the home
of our Navy and our defense against all those scary foreign powers) you can’t
unflood them. Once the climate is out of control and forests that have evolved
to a particular climate die out, you can’t bring them back. Once an area’s
water supply has been poisoned by fracking or oil spills, you can’t wash it
clean again.
And if you think Trump will have
one scruple against destroying something that is precious to others, you haven’t
done your research. Here is just one example of many about how Trump treats the
things anyone else values. He already plans to dismantle the EPA (the P is for
Protection in case the acronym EPA has become a dirty word in your mind) and
appoint climate change deniers into key cabinet positions.
Every plan he has points to removing roadblocks of big oil/coal industry and
those roadblocks (Clean Air act, Clean Water Act) protect the environment for
the rest of us. And I can guarantee you that those big industries leaders won’t
be sticking around in the places they’ve polluted. And long after Trump is dead
and buried and even after his horrible social agenda has been shoved back into
the last century where it belongs, our children and grandchildren and great
grandchildren will be dealing with repercussions of his environmental policy.
Or they won’t because they may not survive the pollutions and poisons.
So my take home message is this.
Fight Trump on every social injustice you can. Support your friends and
neighbors. But if you only have energy left to fight one things, fight for our
planet so there is something left after we are all gone to ashes and dust.
Please share if this has been of any value to you in these
troubling times.
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