Post-Election Reactions

How to begin….how to begin…processing the events of the past week? Everything feels surreal, as if all the rules of the universe have suddenly been proven false. Despite the close nature of the race, I somehow felt that in the end we would be celebrating the election of the first woman to our nation’s highest office. Instead I find myself reeling from the resulting Trump presidency. Even putting those two words together feels strange and uncomfortable..Trump….presidency…

I wanted to express my thoughts the day after the election, but found myself unable to get enough of a grip on my emotions to articulate anything intelligently. And as the days wore on, I found myself reading all the thoughtful Facebook posts of my friends, the majority of whom share my political leanings. Even within that group of generally like minded people, I found two very different approaches on how to react to the new “through the looking glass” world we find ourselves in. On one side, there are those who argue, that the electoral college is a farce that should be abolished and the majority of the popular vote should determine the result. They say we should protest and not meekly accept a racist misogynistic fear-mongering leader. On the other side, there are those who calmly state their disappointment in the result, but believe in the institutions of our democracy to temper Trump and feel we need to unite the divisiveness in our country.

I find myself torn between both positions. My fear and anger at the vitriol spewed by the candidate Trump didn't simply vanish because he is now the president elect. His character did not miraculously transform overnight into that of a respectful, compassionate, thoughtful, open-minded man. As word of his possible advisors is released, it becomes apparent that despite his 60 Minutes interview where he told his supporters to stop harassing minorities, he plans on surrounding himself with more bigoted advisors. I fear for all those who he and his supporters marginalized and attacked throughout the campaign - the LGBTQ community, the Muslim community, people of color, women and so many more. My grief and fear feel physical, like a hardened ball of dread sitting behind my chest. I want to rage and wail at the racism and hatred that has been legitimized by the president-elect’s victory, but yet there is the moderating voice inside me that wants to believe we will be ok, that we can survive the next 4 years by working together to understand the deep dissatisfaction and disenfranchisement half our citizens felt that led to this place we find ourselves. Though I want to be able to see the perspective of the other side who feel that their economic situation has been ignored, I cannot excuse prejudice and hatred toward people who may look, pray, and act differently than “normal” white America.

I know there are those who say we are overreacting but I think that unless you are a member of one of the groups that feel threatened, you have no right to direct or explain their feelings away. As an Indian American woman having lived in America for the past 41 years, I have to say this is the first time I am truly feeling wary of others’ gaze; questioning what people are really thinking and wondering whether they voted for Trump despite his failing to denounce his racist supporters. As The Daily Show’s Hassan Minaj pointed out, You may not personally be a racist, sexist xenophobe, but that comes with the package…so if you take that deal, what you’re telling me is, ‘Hey man, I don’t hate you. I just don’t care about you.” Well, I want to declare right now, that I think we should all care about each other. We should speak up and support each other in the difficult times ahead. Let us not simply be tolerant, because tolerance implies the bare minimum of acceptance, but rather let us be active in our embrace of the differences that make our nation and culture great. Instead of reverting back to the tired metaphor of America as a melting pot where one loses all identifying characteristics, striving toward becoming a white Eurocentric image of a good citizen, we should adopt the salad bowl analogy where each person’s uniqueness is celebrated as adding a distinct flavor to the American culture. Retaining and celebrating our differences, whether it be racial, religious, or sexual is more important than ever. So, though I am still struggling with accepting the new reality we find ourselves in, I will cling to hope and have faith that “love trumps hate."

A Case for Empathy

As I listen to the news and read the many online articles cataloging the hatred and insults of American citizens toward people who they consider “the other,” my heart grows heavy and a sickening feeling of betrayal floats around me like a miasma. If you ask anyone who knows me, I am the glass half full, rose-tinted glasses wearing, eternal optimist. Sickeningly so… I can take pretty much any situation and say. “Let’s not look at it as X, but Y. We wouldn’t have learned about Y if X hadn’t happened… And Y will help us grow and be a better person….” You get the point… But I have to say, I’m having a difficult time convincing myself that the disillusionment I feel is somehow a good thing. As a child of immigrant parents growing up in a small town in central Pennsylvania, I had an interesting childhood to say the least. But before getting into the details of that crazy mixed up experience, I’d like to preface this story by saying that my disillusionment stems from the fact that I left that small town believing I was American. I identified with my Indian ancestry and heritage, but deep inside I related to the world like any other teenager who had grown up in the 80s - watching MTV, having sleepovers with my friends and hanging out at the mall. I remember having a conversation the first year of our marriage with my husband, who had grown up in India, about our hypothetical children and how they would be perceived in America. He claimed that no matter how long you stayed in this country, you would always be an outsider and that if some circumstances changed, the brown color of our skin would be stigmatized and we would be looked upon in a negative manner. As a young woman of ideals and passions, I very righteously defended American society, stating that he of course did not understand and that that would never happen. I was American. My accent was American. I could sing all the words to Don McLean’s American Pie. How could anyone not think I was American? And of course our children who would be born and raised in this country would be even more so. As the years wore on, my understanding of identity and culture and politics became more nuanced. But at the core, I still believed that I was a member of American society with all its  privileges. I was part of this club. I knew the secret handshake. Now, I feel like not only do I not know the handshake, I feel like the club is not what I thought it was; it was not a welcoming safe place, but rather a treacherous obstacle course where one wrong move gets you thrown out. Whenever I hear a Trump supporter yelling disgusting epitaphs at muslims, blacks and hispanics, I feel the sharp jab of those insults. I feel them mocking my naive belief that as a brown naturalized citizen, I am an integral part of this society. That I am and will always be American.

Now that I’ve explained my reasons for my depressive attitude, let me share a story from my childhood that gives me hope. Okay, so my mother is pretty awesome. At least I think so now. Not so much as a tween. The reason we even settled in a small town in central Pennsylvania is due to my mother’s insistence that we grow up in a real American town not over populated by other Indians like those found in numerous communities in Florida. She had the foresight to see that it was important we learned how to interact and be part of the American community we lived in. Wow, you say. What an amazing woman who recognized that integration was important for us to really become part of the society we had chosen to live in! And she was forward thinking in that. With one minor...okay...major exception. She simultaneously wanted to cling to Indian culture out of a fear that we would lose that part of ourselves. She was a woman trapped between two worlds. One, where she was a mother trying her hardest to help her children adjust to a new world and another, where she was a daughter and a sister trying to please and appease her relatives back home who had certain expectations of duty and responsibility.  So, how did this struggle manifest itself? Let’s go back in time to 1982. I was a young girl about to begin junior high school, on the edge of teenage-hood. An age when any mother would begin trembling in fear as her daughter is about to step into the next stage of adolescence. But for a mother torn between two cultures, the fear of this transition was overwhelming. She unilaterally decide that I was no longer allowed to wear “western” clothes. She would train me to be a good Indian girl by dressing me in traditional clothes. I don’t think anyone can imagine the boulder that lay in my stomach as I dragged myself to the bus stop the first day of junior high, with my shiny coconut oiled braids and my ankle length traditional skirt, my heart pounding as I gazed at the ground, afraid to make eye contact with anyone on the bus. At school, my friends protected me the best that they could with their loyal support and I discovered that despite what people say, middle schoolers can be empathetic. I found a group of other misfits who adopted me as I was - a square peg that stood out for her foreignness. But all was not well. There were a handful of students, trapped in their own ignorance, who thought what fun it would be to torture the strange looking Indian girl. There was hair pulling, taunts, and name calling. I just kept my head down, made it through the day, and cried myself to sleep at night. I know I said that this would be a story of hope, so let me tell you what happened in that small town where I was being tormented for looking different. As I sat in my 7th grade reading class, I heard a rumor going around the school that a popular 9th grader had stood up in front of the auditorium and told everyone to stop picking on “that little Indian girl.” I didn’t know his name and it wasn’t until many years later I found out that it was the cousin of one of my friends. All I knew was after that brave boy stood up and proclaimed his protection, not one person bothered me. Can you imagine what strength of character it would have taken for him to decide to speak up for someone who didn’t have a voice? I am forever grateful to him, not only for taking away my daily tormentors, but for showing me that empathy is a powerful force that can change people’s lives for the better. He saw my foreignness, he witnessed the negative reactions to it, and decided to not silently condone it. He empathized with my fear and pain and spoke up to stop what was causing it. What is more hopeful than that? A child understanding that abusing someone for their differences, denying that person’s humanity, is not right, and when we are confronted by someone who is hurt whether it is physically or emotionally, one should speak out in their defense.

In this era of nationalism and fear, I give you this story of hope. This story of small-town America, of a child who looked at racism and prejudice and decided to speak up. So, when I feel that miasma settling over me, casting a sickly sadness as to the state of America, I will remind myself that empathy will rule over hatred as long as we have the courage to give it a voice.