During a personal IM I came to a realization about
why I had and have such a visceral response to the new president. And it also offers an explanation for why it
seems so effortless for me to feel empathy and offer support to people of
color, people in the LGBTQ community, women, and pretty much any group that
isn’t white and straight. It is not
immediately obvious why; I do not belong to any of these groups and in fact I
am white and I am straight. This (edited)
IM below probably simplifies the reason too much, and I am more likely the sum
total of almost 50 years of just being in the world, but I suspect that this is
at the root of what made me.
In 1976 my older sister once rescued me from the
repeated beatings of an older kid named Blane Miller in grammar school. He tormented me on a regular basis and one
day my sister appeared out of nowhere and sent him sliding across the loose
gravel on the playground. But, other ‘Blane
Millers’ continued the onslaught when she wasn't around for about five years following,
pummeling my head and arms and torso with closed fists in rapid fire, followed
by kicking my stuff down the hall and a rash of verbal assaults --
"fag! loser! nice holes in your
clothes!!" We were poor and I was
small and skinny and I smiled a lot, I guess that made me a target. Where the hell were the adults in the
room? Honestly, some of them were not
much better. Kids still endure this
every day, and I and they recognize our abusers all too well in this dumpster
fire of a president-elect. On November 8th,
my country, including some people close to me, elected the embodiment of ‘Blane
Millers’ everywhere to be the leader and moral compass of our country. I do not know what to do with that. Time I guess.
This is the best explanation I can think of for why
I usually err on the side of empathy and on the side of groups who have
suffered the most at the hands of the more powerful. If you had asked me a week or two ago if I
thought that my time in school had an effect on me, I would have told you that
is ridiculous. It is ancient
history. But I would have been
wrong. It is forever part of me. In hind
sight it gave me the ability to feel the pain of other people almost as deeply
as if it were my own, especially for people of color, women, LGBTQ, and most
immigrant groups at one time or another.
And their pain has been so much worse than anything I endured. These groups also see their abusers in DT (I
can’t bring myself to use that name).
And America, you just acquitted, encouraged, and emboldened their
abusers. My hope was that you would send
him sliding across the gravel on the playground, but instead you just threw in
a few more punches of your own.
