I’m only now emerging from the shock of the election. I’m not okay. I’m stunned by my fellow Americans’ choice for hate over love, fear over understanding, divisiveness over unity. Of course, that shock is a huge marker of my own privilege, the fact that my life is so uncompromised by bigotry and racism that I believed the majority of the country would vote against such things.
Today I have no such illusions. Shaun King’s twitter feed alone is enough to make me understand how wrong I was. While I don’t believe every person who voted for Trump is an overt racist, I do believe that their votes constitute consent to bigotry. I am also to blame because I didn’t do enough. I donated, I phonebanked, but I didn’t go far enough. I didn’t have many uncomfortable conversations because they made me uncomfortable. I was inside the echo chamber and I believed what I heard.
I’m ashamed of my complacency, my complicity. I’m terrified for my friends and family, for the nation and the planet.
I will do more. I will act. I will have uncomfortable conversations. It will be hard. I will fail. But I will do more. I must.
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