Hope is a Powerful Drug
Yesterday was appalling.
What transpired at one of our sacred institutions of democracy was a vile demonstration of white privilege and white supremacist nationalism and it was incited by a sitting president.
The Confederate flag flew at the Capitol for the first time in our nation’s history.
A white man in jeans sat with his feet propped casually on the Speaker of the House’s desk and left her a menacing note: “We Will Not Back Down.”
A white man wearing horns and a KKK tattoo on his torso screamed “FREEDOM!” from the floor of the Senate.
Four people are dead.
Hundreds of other illegal and irreverent acts of defiance occurred, all committed by angry white men and women, many of whom bore white supremacist tattoos and symbols and/or subscribe to the QAnon school of thought.
There is video footage of the President encouraging this riot.
My feelings about this are not complex. They are shockingly simple.
- It was insurrection.
- It was illegal.
- It was wrong.
- I’m angry.
- If you cannot or will not denounce yesterday’s occurrences and also Donald Trump, you have abandoned all semblance of reason and I will no longer suffer your ignorance.
- Make no mistake: were the people involved yesterday anything but white, the steps of the Capitol would have been littered with dead bodies.
I woke up this morning grateful that I have a child too young to understand or even have awareness of what happened yesterday. I can focus on processing everything myself. But how do I even start doing that?
Yesterday’s events triggered a fissure I am concerned is too large to fill or repair for a very long time. Democracy may not have toppled but our civility certainly did. Cody and I both have family members that not only refuse to denounce what happened but are going so far as to dig their heels in on supporting Trump carte blanche. It’s heartbreaking and enraging. Cody and I have been having regular conversations about how to address that with them in regards to our daughter. We don’t want her to think that kind of belief system is acceptable nor do we want to sever ties with people who we have spent our whole lives loving. What’s the balance?
I don’t have a clear cut answer to that. Navigating the world as a parent is still pretty new to me. The advice I’ve received has ranged from “say nothing,” to “cut them out entirely.” I want to strike a balance between the two. It’s incredibly stressful and challenging to reconcile the fact that people we love and who have loved us, who we thought believed in kindness and empathy, made us laugh and taught us about the world, could espouse values or rhetoric that stands in such stark contract to our experience with them and who we thought them to be. It feels like a lie. I want to protect my daughter from becoming emotionally embroiled in that trap.
The last time the US Capitol was breached was by the British over 200 years ago on August 14, 1812 during a WAR. We are not at war. Not in the traditional sense, at least. It’s certainly an ideological war; one waged where reason and truth and facts mean nothing to those who choose to sink themselves into the quicksand of lies and falsehoods of a narcissistic megalomaniac. How do you win a war against people who are presented with real evidence and they don’t just ignore it, they choose to believe it’s still a lie?
That’s what frightens me the most: the utter disregard for truth. To me that’s delusion and you cannot reason with delusion.
So, as a parent, as a mom, what’s my role? What can I do to build a bridge over this ideological fissure for myself, my child and this nation? How can I repair this, accepting that any effort to reason with the MAGA crowd is a futile effort?
I can live out my life in a way that is good.
Our greatest role as parents is to acknowledge that we are our children’s first and greatest teachers. For good and for bad — the things we say, the behaviors we model, the experiences we give our children will inevitably and irrevocably shape them for their entire lives. We are the foundation of the people they become.
My goal is to behave and speak in ways that show my daughter that empathy and kindness are the pillars of humanity. That honesty and integrity are paramount. That the world is still full of good, even on the darkest days. That standing up for what you believe in is powerful but that you must do it in a way that is also powerful: peacefully and thoughtfully and intelligently. I might be angry but I still have hope. Hope is a powerful drug.
Yesterday was appalling. The consequences of it will reverberate in the annals of history for a long time. I’m still reeling, emotionally, from it all. We all are. We will not soon forget the shock, horror, fear and dismay we felt watching those rioters momentarily lay waste to decency and reason in our Capitol.
But not all is lost.
Together, those of us who stand for justice and dignity and reason, can be louder and more powerful than any noise made yesterday. We can drown out the hate, the lies; we can silence those who wish to tear us down one shred of sanity at a time. Become an ally, register to vote, speak up for injustice, sign petitions, be kind, elect people who embrace facts, tell the truth, stand up for what is right and good in this world; the sun cannot set on democracy if we do these things. Together. Let’s get going. Yesterday showed us there is not one minute to waste.❤
