Bridging the Trump Gap

Inhale. Exhale. Disengage. Re-engage. Try to figure it all out. Just forget it and move on. Try to be positive. But I can't.

After Tuesday night's election, where Donald Trump was elected as the next President of the United States, I was thrust into a state of grief, hopelessness and devastation I haven't felt in awhile. I cried alone Tuesday night. I cried Wednesday with my colleagues and co-workers. And we cried not simply for the loss of Hillary, but for the loss of our faith in humanity. Eventually my depression subsided, but as I watched the surge in hate crimes around America, I became afraid. And now, as I see more and more people supporting Trump, glossing over the "fine details", and ignoring the impact that his election has had on the social climate around us is simply pissing me off. And to process these feelings, I must blog.

Now I recognize that there are varying degrees of support for Trump: some people (like the KKK) are blatant racists who identified with the candidate who systematically attacked every non-white ethnic group from Hispanics to Middle Easterners, from Blacks to Asians. Some people (like right wing Christians) are not at all racist, but they identified with the man who swore to abolish abortion and overturn the Supreme Court ruling of Marriage Equality because he aligned with their religious beliefs. Some people are none of those things, but they are still feeling the after effects of 9/11 and are facing the very real dangers of terrorism in an ISIS world.So they identified with a self-proclaimed leader who has promised to ban potentially dangerous Muslims and refugees because they are scared and need to feel safe somehow.

Others on the other hand are not at all racist, heterosexist (this is the more appropriate term beyond homophobic), or misogynistic, and they're not against refugees or Muslims. These are the people who simply agreed with Trump's actual campaign and platform about changing the welfare state, securing gun rights, creating more jobs, reforming socialized medical care, etc. Now I highly doubt that there has ever been a political candidate that anyone has agreed with 100%. There are always issues that we don't necessarily care for, there are usually topics which we find ourselves on the exact opposite side of the debate, and often times there are presented solutions that are not as powerful or effective as we would like them to be. But we prioritize the issues that are most important to us, and use this as our guiding compass to determine which candidate will help the country become the home we want it to be.

Unfortunately many people don't seem to prioritize racism, sexism, heterosexism, and sexual assault as bigger issues. As one person said when I was debating over the precarious Trump campaign on Facebook, "we need to agree to disagree on the fine details and recognize that we agree on the major points." The fine details. So suddenly these extremely perilous social illnesses are minute details in the greater scheme of the race to become the most powerful leader in the world. For those who glossed over the fine details and voted for Trump, what they don't understand is whether or not they agreed with the racism, the sexism, the heterosexism, and the sexual assault, they voted for a man who represented these things.

Now he's president. It's a catastrophe that...ahem...trumps the debacle of Brexit in the UK and our future is dreary and uncertain. But the difference between us and Brexit is the morning after their vote, most Brits realized they made a mistake. Most people, steeped in regret, begged for another chance to vote. And they now cling to hope that as Parliament reviews the decision, the vote will not be honored. Here, many people have cheered, many people have celebrated, no one has uttered a single "my god what have we done?" Trump supporters are arguing, justifying, and ignoring in the worst case of confirmation bias I have ever seen. Many refuse to discuss the hate-filled rants that made Trump notorious throughout the world. Others acknowledge their existence only to refute it, blaming the media for making Trump look bad with doctored videos, edited sound bites, and fabricated quotes, even though the evidence is there in front of them. Some people have pleaded with us to "find the good in him" and give him a chance. While he may have had a few positive moments worth highlighting during his campaign, Trump's escalating derogatory comments against minorities often eclipsed any good deeds, and this was no one's fault but his own. In the end, he made it very clear that today's colorful America was not the America he planned to maintain. And now our society is falling apart at the seams.

Hate crimes are rising. More and more reports are flowing in all over the nation of people attacking minorities and many of us do not feel safe walking down the streets. Adult men are grabbing Muslim women's hijabs off their heads, throwing them to the ground, telling other women they are going to grab them by the pussy, and actually trying to. White men are beating black men and gays. The KKK is throwing a celebratory march for Trump's victory, and came out in droves yesterday in Anaheim, California to battle the anti-Trump protests. Children are chanting "build that wall" in lunchrooms, driving Latino youth to tears. One high-schooler created homemade Deportation notices and handed them out to everyone in his school who looked even remotely Hispanic. Someone hanged a black baby doll in a college university. A friend of mine told me she witnessed a hate crime sitting outside a restaurant in Long Beach, where a white man told an Asian man to "pack [his] bags, because [his] time in this country is limited." Following Brexit, another vote saturated in xenophobia, hate crimes rose by 60% and are continuing in spite of the time that has passed. This is our future. With his demonizing, divisive speeches, our President-elect has created an atmosphere where people feel it is okay to perpetuate these acts of violence and hatred, and we're terrified of it. But Trump supporters refuse to acknowledge it. They don't mention it and won't denounce it. Trump finally did, in an interview with 60 Minutes he gave a very effective "stop it."

They also refuse to acknowledge the very real threats Trump/Pence poses to minorities with promises to overturn Marriage Equality and stop any protective measures for LGBTs, promises to kick out refugees and refuse to provide them a safe haven from their war torn countries, promises to bring back torture tactics in the military, ending environment protection, and defund planned parenthood (which is mostly HIV treatments, contraception, and cancer screenings, far beyond the small percentage of abortions).

I can't count how many times I have heard that we are acting like babies, throwing tantrums, whining like children because we didn't win the game. Others maintain that we should respect other peoples' opinions, that we need to learn to agree to disagree. Many say that we are being uncooperative and we need to learn to unite and work together for our country. So how do we bridge the gap?

First of all, let me tell you, there is not and never will be an "Agree to Disagree" on racism, sexism, heterosexism, or sexual assault. There is no gray area, no common ground where we should compromise on these issues. But if we agree that not all of you who voted for Trump are racist, misogynistic, heterosexist, or rapists, you must acknowledge that Trump has made very racist, misogynistic, heterosexist comments that are not okay, and you cannot pretend that he did not admit to sexually assaulting women. Secondly if we agree that not all of you are going to attack us or rob us of our rights, you cannot disregard or dismiss that we minorities are being threatened and attacked by other Trump supporters and by Trump's own promises to degrade and devalue us as human beings. You cannot mock us for feeling unsafe just because the violence and future laws don't impact you. Thirdly, if you think we are overreacting or panicking needlessly, you can laugh skeptically and assure us that nothing bad is going to happen, but you must promise to stand with us if we are being attacked in the community or if our basic rights are going to be threatened by some law or Supreme Court ruling in the future.

This is the beginning of this compromise. Refusal to acknowledge these basic truths is a refusal to begin the conversation. If we listen to you, you must listen to us, support us, and stand with us. Then and only then can we converse, problem-solve, and unite.

Driving Out the Darkness

Our world is drowning in violence. Terrorism, rape, homicide, police brutality, and the aggressive responses such attacks foster in a social existence that is tired of the blood bath we've been wading in. Anger is of course the natural reflex that surges when we see our families, friends, and countrymen harmed by a perceived outsider, and even more so when they're hurt by the very system intended to protect us. But what dangers could this fury unleash when left unbridled in the hands of a nation scorned? What could we possibly accomplish with the draconian eye for an eye mentality that leaves us blind beyond the pupils of our enemy? There are many battles to fight, but there are many paths to victory, and the descending spiral of violence is not one of them.

Many arguments in the history of the world have been settled by war in one respect or another, but while they led to ceasefires and peace agreements, they rarely led to harmony and tranquility. More recently, the wars waged across the geographical lines of international borders have raged on without any possibility of resolution in sight. The war on ISIS and Al Qaeda, the Boko Haram Insurgency, the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict have been battling on for years and even decades, with millions dead and more dying every year. Even here in the US, internal combats have spattered our streets with blood thanks to gang wars, drug wars, gun violence, racism, homophobia, and yes, even police brutality.

In a country where law enforcement has been given the ultimate power to protect the innocent civilians of the US, it seems the long arm of the law too often sees color beyond Justice's blindfold, and reaches for the firearm on its hip too quickly. As a result, several innocent black lives have been lost. Violations of the law that include being in the wrong place at the wrong time, following directions, lying motionless on the ground, placing your hands in the air are all things that can get you killed when you are the wrong color in this country. Especially if you are confronted with the misfortune of having a police officer who is quicker to reach for more lethal means beyond a taser or pepper spray.

Of course every time, and far too often, when these stories splash across my computer screen, when they haunt the water cooler at work, the anger rises in my chest, bitter as bile. While I admit I have never faced the onslaught of violence and aggression the boys and girls in blue deal with on a daily basis, I have worked in high intensity environments, where individuals were unstable and as such became violent and aggressive towards themselves, towards others, and towards staff, including me. We were taught (minimally) how to address these attacks, usually involving a quick ProACT restraint, tackling the client to the ground, holding them in place as they writhed and struggled beneath our grips. We fielded globs of spit as they flew in the general direction of our faces, we shifted our hands so they were just out of the reach of their gnashing teeth, we fought to gain and regain control of their flailing arms and legs as we were punched, kicked in the the face and the chest. Sometimes we had to wrestle potential weapons from them, including broken shards of glass, broken bottles, and rocks. Our safety and well being was endangered. Many staff ended up in the emergency room with cuts, abrasions, bleeding bite marks, and concussions. But at the end of the day, we understood this was the job.

We worked with psychologically disturbed clients. Granted the facility was not well run and the clients were out of control, but still we did our best to keep the peace with the little training we had. We were not afforded tasers, pepper spray, batons, or cuffs and certainly not granted guns. We had many opportunities to lose our cool in the heat of the moment and lash out at our attackers, we had every reason to panic in the many crises that flooded our hallways. I even developed mild PTSD after being strangled at work. But this was the job. This is what we signed up for. And this is what police officers sign up for every day when they put on the badge. Now of course I am not asking them to risk their lives, and if the gun is genuinely necessary, they must do what they have to do. But with the extensive training they have to de-escalate and manage crises and the multiple tools in their belt they can work with, what excuse do they have for impulse, for panic, for repeated deadly force?

I can't wrap my head around it. I never could. But as angry as I get, I understand that violence is not the answer. Fighting brutality with brutality brings no calm to the tumultuous sea of our society, but adds to the confusion, the irrationality, and the impulsive decisions that can completely destroy the remaining scaffolding of our crumbling world. In spite of the overwhelming desire to bash in the heads of the guilty parties across the nation, I understand that killing innocent officers during a protest is not a solution. Assaults and arrests are not the solution. Rioting and looting is not the solution. Much like the result of police brutality, violence breeds nothing more than distrust, suspicion, and fear. There are thousands of peaceful demonstrators in the Black Lives Matter movement, but the more aggressive members seek to garner attention, notoriety, progress and respect, these intimidation tactics only breed deep-seated trepidation which will eventually turn to animosity and onward toward hostility. Blame will be placed, distrust will grow, the Us vs. Them mentality will thrive, and violence will build in an ever-growing cycle until it becomes an unstoppable force; before the nation is swallowed in a bloody tidal wave.

Violence begets violence. Martin Luther King, one of the more prominent leaders of the Civil Rights Movement built his legacy on non-violent approaches to challenging the constructs of social injustice in the 1960s. There were several other leaders in the movement who made their own contributions, but aside from Malcolm X, they have not been as prominent, and unlike Malcolm X, MLK made his lasting mark in history without the "any means necessary" tactics. There were sit-ins, there were boycotts, there were peaceful marches that garnered the attention and the notoriety the movement deserved in order to facilitate change. Many people have turned to his teachings and cited his speeches in their tireless arguments for peaceful battles, not because they're trying to change history or "whitewash" the violence out of it, but simply out of desire to follow the path that he cleared through the decades. Because it was the better path of the two laid out before us.

Now in the midst of these desperate pleas for peaceful strategies, I was called complacent, accused of indifference because I wasn't angry enough to be aggressive. I was even told that my opinion on the ineffectiveness of violence was invalid and unwarranted because I'm not black, and I don't have the right to criticize the way black people address their own issues. I don't need to be black to know that violence is not the answer; I don't need to be violent to prove that I care. I can be and will be a peaceful warrior in fostering change in the world, because this is my tactic: to avoid adding a deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.

Hate cannot drive out hate. Only love can do that.