I posted this image and wrote: "So proud to be raising a daughter who has the freedom to 'cast her vote.' Or even be "the boss of the whole country." "I'm the decider!" she exclaims this evening, her towel wrapped around her post-bath body like a judge's robe. "And tomorrow Hillary will be President!" Let's hope the Bean's got a little prophet in her."
I have been rather silent on this blog lately. In part, because I'm trying to participate in NaNoWriMo for the month of November, which basically uses any extra time I can cobble together, particularly anything that requires the writing part of my brain. But also, I haven't been able to get my head back on straight since the election last Tuesday, November 8th. I have lost hours of my life to Facebook, using the social media platform more in the last month that probably cumulative in my life. Except maybe for those first three months of breastfeeding, I can't recall. It's safe to say it has been a passionate roller coaster of emotions and opinions at our house. I actually am a bit sad that I haven't been writing any of my political two-cents on here, for posterity, because it will either be embarrassing or interesting to read with a bit of hindsight bias someday. So I am going to try and pull from what I might have said on IG or FB and put in here, for safe keeping.
I was so very excited to not only vote for a female president, but for Hillary Clinton herself. The morning of Election Day, I was giddy and emotional about the prospect of my daughter getting to witness history in the making. Her growing up in a time where girls really could do anything. I was inspired by this "pantsuit flash mob" video I saw in the morning, and felt excited and light on my feet and had a hard time concentrating all day. In the spirit of "pantsuit nation," I made Alex wear his suit to school, I wore a corduroy suit jacket from Alex's grandfather, and Francie wore something more like a pea coat. That afternoon I busted out of work quickly and hit up Wild Fang, in downtown PDX, to buy each of us a "Wile Feminist" shirt. Originally, I was going to buy some Hillary merchandise from her website. But because Alex couldn't actually wear that to school anyway, I was leaning away from it. But on Election Day, I felt like we needed to wear something to show our support. But something timeless. And these shirts were perfection.
I posted this and wrote: "You better believe we dug through our closets for anything that approximated a pantsuit. I'm excited to be a witness to this momentous occasion. Although I feel awkward in public in this corduroy jacket from Alex's grandpa's suit, it's a good reminder that I voted for and support a presidential candidate who aims to support a diversity of people who are made to feel some version of awkward and uncomfortable for things far more significant than their clothing."
I posted this image accompanied by this: "I started my morning with this brief but wise exchange with my articulate four-year-old daughter, a "nasty girl" in the making. I assumed the sentiment was inspired by conversation with her father over breakfast. In fact, these words came from her very own mind, heart, and soul. "Bravery is when we do something even though we are scared." You are so right, my sweet Bean. There are lots of people in this nation, in this world, who have always felt scared, and are feeling even more afraid right now. I truly believe it is our job, our responsibility - as educated, healthy, well-supported, and privileged white folks - to practice bravery. Compassion. Advocacy. I'm grateful that it feels safe for me to live and move comfortably through my world, let alone freely express my thoughts, feelings, and opinions; and while that freedoms has never been experienced by everyone (as I wish it was), it seems in an even more precarious position today. Though I'm tremendously disappointed Francine (and I) won't see the first female president this year, I will continue to try and instill in her a keen sense of kindness, empathy, tolerance, activism, and bravery. And to be mindful of more opportunities to practice these things myself."
***
This was something Alex wrote on FB:
A Post from Public School
A five foot tall teenage Muslim-American girl is shoved into a wall by a group of boys and told she's gonna have to go home now that Trump's in charge.
Latino students entering the school are told they will be deported soon.
A gay student is told that hopefully they enjoy conversion therapy.
That same Muslim-American girl is called a terrorist in the hallways at school.
A different Muslim-American student is told that her father's going to get his terrorist ass deported.
All of these things have happened at my school this week. All of them have happened since it became apparent that Donald Trump would become our next president.
None of these types of targeted, direct and overt instances of bigotry and dehumanization happened before. Literally, on Tuesday, my school was business as usual. Kind, somewhat sheltered and naive children, laughing and joking and doing school... together. The very next day, literally, the next day a storm of vitriol and intolerance for humanity plagued students from every single specific group targeted by the Trump campaign. Starting at approximately 9 p.m. on Tuesday and continuing through today Muslim students. Latino students. LGBTQ students. Black students. Members representing each of these demographic groups were specifically and overtly targeted with harassment at my school.
This whole election has been shocking. But working in a well meaning, empathic and generally kind high school has given me a tragic view of Donald Trump's effect on our children. His election has green-lighted hate speech and intolerance in a very real way. I knew that racism, homophobia and general xenophobia existed. But I thought that it had been deemed unacceptable in mainstream, professional settings. I thought it had been culturalized as no longer appropriate to vocalize. It certainly had been in my school. Trump changed all that. To watch our children emulate and intensify the rhetoric that he used to get elected has made for a truly terrifying week. Watching the speed at which the general culture of acceptance and safety at my school evaporated has been tragic. In a span of 12 hours the positive and nurturing environment I worked in flipped into a den of fear, anxiety and depression fostered by antagonistic, dehumanizing and hateful attacks directed openly at minority students.
As I tried my best to explain to my classes that we are all human beings. That we now have to decide how we will treat each other. That our school has to be a safe place, because people can't learn when they are threatened. That adults cannot control them, they do not have to follow our lead and it is ultimately up to them whether or not they want to study in an antagonistic and hateful environment, or a peaceful and collaborative one. That they must support each other, they must see each other as human beings, regardless of all else. As I tried to inspire them with hope and positivity despite not feeling any myself, I saw them looking back at me. I saw Latino students crying. Muslim students crying. Girls crying. Gay students crying. Trump supporting students crying. I saw shame. I saw fear. I saw panic and distress.
And then I had them write. I read true beauty from my students this week. I learned that almost all of them are compassionate. That they are afraid because they don't want to live in a world where some people are treated as less than. Their friends. Treated as less than, cast aside and dismissed. They want to help. They want to show kindness and acceptance. They want to help but they don't know how. So many students wrote about not knowing what to do. About being paralyzed and helpless and lost. These children look to the adult world for safety, for stability, for comfort and we have given them the opposite. We have deemed it acceptable to discount, disgrace, defame and dehumanize. They are in free fall.
Every single voting age adult in the country right now should know that we have cast our children into chaos and fear. Whether you feel vindicated and victorious, depressed and disheartened, or dismissively righteous - we have all failed them. I don't say this as a liberal democrat. I don't say it as a teacher. I don't even say it as a concerned citizen. I say this as a former journalist. I feel a moral and civic duty to try to objectively report what I have seen in a public school this week. This is important because as adults, we see and process the world through our own lens. We interact with each other in adult terms. But when you drop your kids off at school, they are free from you. They experiment and exercise their developing identities. The acute effect that this election's outcome had on our youth is something we should all take pause to consider. As a nation and a people we are at an unprecedented precipice. This week I saw a fundamental shift in the way our most innocent treat each other. Whether you believe in the change Trump promised or not, the shift in humanism and resultant change in atmosphere I observed this week is not one you want for your children.
In a few short weeks our electoral college will make official this decision. A month later this person will be sworn in. Somewhere in the recesses of my being I cling to hope. As someone who witnessed the effect of Donald Trump being made official on our youth, our future, I cling to a hope that it's not too late to reverse or alter this course. Not for us, but for them.
A five foot tall teenage Muslim-American girl is shoved into a wall by a group of boys and told she's gonna have to go home now that Trump's in charge.
Latino students entering the school are told they will be deported soon.
A gay student is told that hopefully they enjoy conversion therapy.
That same Muslim-American girl is called a terrorist in the hallways at school.
A different Muslim-American student is told that her father's going to get his terrorist ass deported.
All of these things have happened at my school this week. All of them have happened since it became apparent that Donald Trump would become our next president.
None of these types of targeted, direct and overt instances of bigotry and dehumanization happened before. Literally, on Tuesday, my school was business as usual. Kind, somewhat sheltered and naive children, laughing and joking and doing school... together. The very next day, literally, the next day a storm of vitriol and intolerance for humanity plagued students from every single specific group targeted by the Trump campaign. Starting at approximately 9 p.m. on Tuesday and continuing through today Muslim students. Latino students. LGBTQ students. Black students. Members representing each of these demographic groups were specifically and overtly targeted with harassment at my school.
This whole election has been shocking. But working in a well meaning, empathic and generally kind high school has given me a tragic view of Donald Trump's effect on our children. His election has green-lighted hate speech and intolerance in a very real way. I knew that racism, homophobia and general xenophobia existed. But I thought that it had been deemed unacceptable in mainstream, professional settings. I thought it had been culturalized as no longer appropriate to vocalize. It certainly had been in my school. Trump changed all that. To watch our children emulate and intensify the rhetoric that he used to get elected has made for a truly terrifying week. Watching the speed at which the general culture of acceptance and safety at my school evaporated has been tragic. In a span of 12 hours the positive and nurturing environment I worked in flipped into a den of fear, anxiety and depression fostered by antagonistic, dehumanizing and hateful attacks directed openly at minority students.
As I tried my best to explain to my classes that we are all human beings. That we now have to decide how we will treat each other. That our school has to be a safe place, because people can't learn when they are threatened. That adults cannot control them, they do not have to follow our lead and it is ultimately up to them whether or not they want to study in an antagonistic and hateful environment, or a peaceful and collaborative one. That they must support each other, they must see each other as human beings, regardless of all else. As I tried to inspire them with hope and positivity despite not feeling any myself, I saw them looking back at me. I saw Latino students crying. Muslim students crying. Girls crying. Gay students crying. Trump supporting students crying. I saw shame. I saw fear. I saw panic and distress.
And then I had them write. I read true beauty from my students this week. I learned that almost all of them are compassionate. That they are afraid because they don't want to live in a world where some people are treated as less than. Their friends. Treated as less than, cast aside and dismissed. They want to help. They want to show kindness and acceptance. They want to help but they don't know how. So many students wrote about not knowing what to do. About being paralyzed and helpless and lost. These children look to the adult world for safety, for stability, for comfort and we have given them the opposite. We have deemed it acceptable to discount, disgrace, defame and dehumanize. They are in free fall.
Every single voting age adult in the country right now should know that we have cast our children into chaos and fear. Whether you feel vindicated and victorious, depressed and disheartened, or dismissively righteous - we have all failed them. I don't say this as a liberal democrat. I don't say it as a teacher. I don't even say it as a concerned citizen. I say this as a former journalist. I feel a moral and civic duty to try to objectively report what I have seen in a public school this week. This is important because as adults, we see and process the world through our own lens. We interact with each other in adult terms. But when you drop your kids off at school, they are free from you. They experiment and exercise their developing identities. The acute effect that this election's outcome had on our youth is something we should all take pause to consider. As a nation and a people we are at an unprecedented precipice. This week I saw a fundamental shift in the way our most innocent treat each other. Whether you believe in the change Trump promised or not, the shift in humanism and resultant change in atmosphere I observed this week is not one you want for your children.
In a few short weeks our electoral college will make official this decision. A month later this person will be sworn in. Somewhere in the recesses of my being I cling to hope. As someone who witnessed the effect of Donald Trump being made official on our youth, our future, I cling to a hope that it's not too late to reverse or alter this course. Not for us, but for them.
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