I watch as Fiona takes Pink Bear to the diaper changing table; she first puts down a soft cloth, she wipes his bottom, telling me he has a poop, she’s as gentle as can be. She attempts to put on a diaper, but needs my help. I help her with the diaper, then go back to the kitchen where I am making dinner. Jack keeps asking about watching Mickey Mouse. I say “No”, he falls down crying. We repeat this scenario several times a day. He always forgets about T.V. after five minutes, or candy, his other true passion that he loves to whine about. Jack and Fiona are only two and a half, I forget that, I feel like they are so much older and wiser. Like somehow they can understand my total devastation and depression; fall out from my New American Administration. An administration I attest. Yesterday I said “Goodbye Cruel World” to my on-line communities, Facebook and Nextdoor. I sit here this morning missing my people, but yesterday I made the decision to get Off-Line and take to the streets. I made the decision to reach out, person to person, find ways to be involved in my community, meet new people in real life, make new friends in my neighborhood. On Friday night I felt like I was having a breakdown. A psychiatric breakdown, “911 what’s your emergency?” I reply, “Trump was elected president”. I needed a stronger drug, a tranquilizer. (that didn’t really happen, but I imagined it happening). Yesterday I took my babies to the park, met up with a friend. Jack and Fiona went off and explored every inch of the playground. I sat and talked with my good friend. They were all the sudden like little kids, not babies. On the drive home, I heard the announcement about Steve Bannon becoming Trumps chief strategist. After Jack and Fiona went down for their nap I researched Bannon. I started to feel physically sick, like I was going to throw up. That’s the moment I deleted my nextdoor and Facebook accounts. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to handle the furry of conversation and outrage online, I knew I didn’t want to focus my energy on posting and sharing articles on Facebook, I KNEW NOW WAS THE TIME TO HIT THE STREETS! I went to my stationary bike and worked out, sweat, then filled a hot bath, I lay down in the tub, under bubbles of lavender and sobbed, just as I did on Friday listening to Leonard Cohen. I sobbed with pictures in my mind of Jack and Fiona playing at the park, knowing that all the optimism and idea that racism and sexism was on it’s way out in their bright new world was dead. I sobbed with my mouth wide open, spit coming out, thinking of all the non-white people in American feeling scared as shit right now. I sobbed about the car posted on Facebook that had “Fagot” spray painted on it. I sobbed about the KKK not being stopped YET, that they are allowed to have a rally. I sobbed about how easy it is for white people to just “accept Trump, give him a chance”. I deleted my Facebook account and miss all my friends from around the world fighting the fights of justice. I will miss keeping in touch with them and everyone. But I am here. I am hitting the streets, there is too much to lose, too much at stake not to get involved, to stay on Facebook griping and moaning and sharing articles. I want to be a physical part of the movement. Me and my babies. I don’t know how I will do it, how I will get the information I need to be part of it, but they did it in the sixties, I’m sure I can figure it out today.
Category: Trump Presidency
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Heavy Shit. I let my boobs bounce free today and wore my Hilary Button on my shirt. I cried talking about the election and had a strange encounter with a Trump supporting kid at the park. I’ve been blasting nineties hip-hop in the car driving the babies around, Jacks learning to chair dance. I feel mad, sad, and ready to fight for Democracy in America. I will NEVER accept Donald Trump as my president. I DON’T care what that stance costs me. I will NOT let this fly. I do not see the silver lining in it, except for my eye balls being ripped open, my callused white, liberal, life that left me thinking that “things can’t be that bad” during the “Black Lives Matter” movement, to knowing now, that things are that bad. My eyes have been ripped open to the systemized racism in America, the pitfalls of our national education system that’s left people ignorant and mislead. My heart bleeds for the pain and suffering for our world, in this country and all other countries. How can we come together? How can we be that final movement to end this constant oppression and theft of our innocence and inherent kindness? The past two days I’ve hugged and kissed my babies harder than ever before. I see their pure love towards everyone and everything. They want to help people, to be nurturing, to be kind. Children do this naturally. Children are taught hate and prejudice. They are taught to only care about themselves, to be selfish. So many of us wonder, “How can people not care about the Syrian refugees?”. They don’t even want to help when they can. They give all the reasons why not, instead of thinking about just helping people. Where I live in San Rafael, we have a good homeless support system, a St Vincent’s, A Ritter House, residents of San Rafael are constantly trying to make services for the homeless move somewhere else. They complain about too many homeless people, instead of having some compassion and thanking God that they aren’t homeless themselves. Drop off a Turkey people! Sorry, that was a rant. I don’t know what’s going to happen to me now. I can’t help but blame myself for not staying involved in politics for the past fifteen years. After seeing the live bombing of Iraq broadcast on TV after 9/11 I’ve been dismayed. Since being in Marin, working at Nordstroms, where I was told I wasn’t aloud to talk to people about the war and how we needed to end it. I was told once during an art class I was taking that a person was very offended that I talked about animal rights and asked her to donate to PETA. The government shut down made me so mad. I was harassed with my Obama sticker on my car in Marin. My car was keyed and my Jerry Brown sticker ripped off in Marin. It’s scary and I’m a white suburban housewife. Things are not good in this country right now. Forget about being a teacher, I need to be an activist. We can never become complacent.
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Good Morning. It is November 9, 2016, the day after the US Presidential Election. The unthinkable happened, the unimaginable, Donald Trump won the election. It is a sad day for America and the world. As the November light shines into my house in the most beautiful way, as I make a second cup of coffee and write while my babies are away at school, I am trying to stay focused, to not crack open a bottle and get drunk, not just yet, I need to wait until after I pick them up from school. I only have an hour. I am mourning today. I feel depressed and paranoid. Every white person I see I wonder, “did you vote for Trump?” I feel like I can never trust a white person again, except the ones I know well. I feel I have been naïve in thinking the past racism, the way our country started with slavery and segregation, the fight for civil rights issues were moving forward, I felt like our country was coming together, that other nationalities, women, were seen as being equal, that even in the deepest parts of our country things were changing. I thought there was just a small population, an extreme group who wanted to ban Muslims from entering our country, who wanted to deport people and tear apart families, who believed in the KKK, who want to keep women “in their place”. I’m afraid being white and living in a bubble in Northern California has sheltered me from the truth of our country. I am so depressed, I can’t stop crying and feel the pain of all the injustice that has ever taken place in America. I feel so sad that half the population voted for Trump, a total sexist pig. I am really upset. I know I need to get it together, to get involved, to be strong for my children. This isn’t the America I wanted them to grow up in. I’m grieving today. I can’t stop crying, I feel like there’s been a death. I guess it’s the death of hope.
I know things will swing back, not sure if it will happen in my lifetime or if the planet can survive the rolling back of all the environmental protections we’ve put in place. I know it’s not good to be negative or a downer. I feel like moving. I love where I live, the nature, there are a lot of cool people here too. But it’s mostly well to do white people. (now I don’t know if they voted for Trump or not) If they did vote for Trump I am scared of them. I don’t want my kids hanging out with their kids. I know how a lot of them think. I’ve been in HEATED conversations with them about the public-school system in San Rafael. About how the; Schools are terrible, no one speaks English, they think their kids will get inferior education from going to school with English as a second language students. It’s totally bogus, I try to explain to them the tests are biased for the ratings, and all the other things that are wrong with the way they are thinking that I can’t even get into right now. I’d prefer to raise my kids in the East Bay, Berkeley, El Cerrito, The Annex, Oakland, that’s where I feel most comfortable. This election has rocked my world. I have to hang onto my on-line community of people from all over the world and know I’m not alone. We may be separated by many miles, decades, continents, but I know you are out there. I know we are “Stronger Together” We are not going to give up. Today can be a day of grieving, crying, getting drunk, smoking pot, and eating chocolate, but we get up tomorrow and know in our hearts that someday the world will be showered with love and compassion.
Dirty Laundry Blog by Jennifer Hynes 