The Morning After

Nov 9, 2016

Diana Tigerlily

I’m grieving and processing the election. In the years that I taught small group projects at the University, overwhelmingly, the women emerged as the group leaders, and the majority of the men the majority of the time largely slacked. Of the many things that were always problematic about this dynamic, the most troubling was the fact that in the event that, say, the hardest working woman of the group and the biggest slacker man of the group were to be interviewed for the same exact job position, the odds were that the man would be hired over the woman, despite the woman’s qualifications and hard work.

It has always troubled me that the slacker white male student in the baseball cap, khaki shorts, and flip flops who floated into class half-glazed and five minutes late knew that he could afford to be lazy, while at the same time the women of all colors and the men of color would show up every day, punctual, prepared, dressed professionally and perfectly groomed—disciplinary practices that cost time and money—because these students of the non-dominant group knew that they had to work extra hard to earn even a fraction of the credibility that the rich, white, male slacker was simply born with by virtue of his gender, race, and class.

The fact that this scenario has now played out on the national stage of the presidential election leaves me somewhere deeply between grief, despair, disappointment, and rage. The rich white man, in this case, Donald Trump, who never did his homework to prepare for the national debates, who held zero job experience in the field for which he was applying, who showed up in his baseball cap and baggy attire, who capitalized on his privilege to brag about how he can have whatever he wants (because as a rich, white man his entitlement has been reinforced over and over again throughout his lifetime, so he has had no reason to even be conscious of the fact, that, no, he should not be entitled to anything he wants, including women’s bodies), who, in fact just won the presidency, once again reinforces that in America’s systemic sexist, racist, classist patriarchy, the slacker boy can wing, bullshit, lie, insult, and bully his way through speeches into the biggest microphones set up just for him and experience very little reprimand and in fact be rewarded. So why should he even begin to care if he fails the course (the debate, the interview) when he knows he can still get the job?

And yes, I’m going to try to move through my grief. I’m going to embrace the people I love. I’m going to continue affirming to myself and to all the people who are not of the Donald Trump likeness that, yes, we matter, our work matters, our lives matter. But I will be honest. I’m grieving that so much of our energy is spent on simply affirming one another. Not that we shouldn’t affirm one another. I’m saying I’m sad that we haven’t had the luxury to move past putting so much of our energy into these basics of “you matter, we matter.” Shouldn’t this just be the given? I mean isn’t this what we were supposed to be able to comprehend by kindergarten? Isn’t “be kind” the first rule? The good morning hug before we move into the hard work of evolving? Of creatively utilizing our collective resources so that we can all be fed, sheltered, loved, and therefore free to fulfill our passions? Why are we still living in survival mode? Why are we still living at the bottom of Maslow’s pyramid? When can we move beyond investing our energy into meeting basic survival needs and into our collective actualization of justice, social equity, and love? Why do we continue to reward hate?

I’m grieving that Americans are hurting so deeply that half chose to cast their vote for a man who incites hatred, as though hate balms hurt.

I’m grieving that we live in a country that continues to reject the more qualified woman and embrace the unqualified man.

I’m grieving that so many Americans thought it was okay to overlook an individual’s extreme hatred, misogyny, sexual assault, racism, xenophobia, and compulsion to lie, and rationalize that all of his lack of political knowledge and zero preparedness was somehow better than an intelligent, hard-working, overqualified woman who was not completely perfect.

And for those who voted solely “for the Supreme Court”. Please see through your rose-colored glasses to understand the “code” for ‘keeping Citizens United,’ which values corporations over humans; for ‘repealing marriage equality,’ which is a banishment of love; for ‘turning over Roe v Wade,’ which is simply the right to privacy. For those of you who thought your vote for Trump was a vote for anything that you value: your humanity, your freedom to love, your right to a good-paying job, your safety and security, I am grieving that you misunderstood and unwittingly voted against your own best interests.

For those who knew exactly what you were voting for, who voted for Trump because you truly embrace him and his rhetoric of fear and authoritarianism, I am choosing to send love and compassion to you. Because the only way I am able to make sense of this is to assume you must be hurting very deeply. I hope your wounds heal, so that we can together create a world that is built on love and empathy, not fear and fascism.

Meanwhile, to all of us in this shared life, may we somehow find forgiveness for each other, because we have all hurt somebody, and we have all been hurt. Let us each experience moments of kindness with one another. Let us all send energy into the world on behalf of the greater good.