These are hard times. In the United States, and around the world, people are turning toward their darker selves, shoring up their own walls—metaphorical and real. In the United States and around the world, people are letting themselves be guided by fear. As a result, people are becoming more extreme in their actions and reactions, more brash, more intolerant, more prone to believe the most hysterical and fact-free rhetoric.
I know this because I am guilty of it. I am in fear of where this country and the world would go at the hands of Donald Trump, and as a result, I feel more desperate, angry and helpless. I feel inclined to build my own walls, allowing in only those that would not subjugate our world to Trump’s brand of acerbic leadership. I feel inclined to shake people until their minds are clear of hate-radio, and hate-TV and conspiracy theories that tell them they can trust no one ever at any time at all.
In a race between moving forward together
Or moving backward divided
How can anyone be undecided?
~Alicia Keys
I feel inclined to lecture them about the tenets of their religion which says, love. LOVE LOVE LOVE, GOD DAMNIT. Don’t denigrate, don’t race bait, don’t treat women and minorities as prepositions in a sentence that lacks any nouns. Don’t treat knowledge as a sin, and sin as a road block. Don’t hate. Don’t believe anyone when they say we are not better when we work together. Don’t believe anyone when they say you are alone.
I don’t know. I have no answers, only experience. And my experience is that dark and narrow paths often just get darker and more narrow. They often tighten in on you, making it difficult to see, much less turn around. And they make it impossible to walk at someone’s side. It’s always a game of Follow-the-Leader on those narrow paths. Always a game of blind trust.
I prefer my paths to be wide. I prefer having people at my side. And I prefer, when I look out, to not only be able to see where I have been, but also have a good look at all the places I have yet to go.
Great piece Naseem. It is disheartening all the anger and rhetoric and blame. Why did we become a nation of scared loners instead of a United States of unity and hope? I pray that those who believe in freedom for all and love of our neighbors will get us through this dark time
AMEN. I sometimes get so caught up in this election that I forget about other things going on in my life. Never in my life have I seen such hate, such disdain, fear driven desperation… when my actions are also those of desperation driven by fear. Fear of what will happen if Trump is elected. What will happen to our country? What will happen to the immigrants? What will happen with our foreign allies? What will happen with our economy, our rights, our climate? What will happen when the people who have been empowered by Trump to openly express their hate towards those they feel as inferior? What will happen congress doesn’t bow to his commands? What will happen when that first nation insults him?
I also fear what happens if he doesn’t get elected. Those same people he has empowered, have been given the platform to exhibit their hate. They were always there… hiding like spoiled potatoes underneath the surface of the big melting pot that is our country. Only now, Trump has stirred them… brought them to the top so that they can release their foul aroma of bigotry, racism, xenophobia, and intolerance of religious difference. What will Trump himself do if he is elected? Are we naive enough to think he will wilt away into the background in defeat… or will he go on promoting his propaganda of hate for all those who would hear to further divide our already divisive nation?
As I told a friend who lives in Canada… I fear for the whole world if he does become our president… but I still fear for our country if he does not.
I am female, white and a senior citizen, I, too, am frightened at what could happen if trump wins. I cannot understand how people can be so angry, mean and devisive. Especially the so called “Christian”.