Where my faith stands after the 2016 election

First, you might want to read yesterday's post and then come back to this one. (Anger and loathing and the 2016 election)

Second, let me state that my faith in God has not been shaken by this election.

Finally, My faith in humanity, however, has been.

I became a Catholic around the age 5 when my mom married my Catholic Stepdad. My family left the Catholic church when there was a problem with my long-abandoned grandmother decided to divorce. At a more traditional black church I got my hands on a bible... The King James Version....  I was elated. ... and faithful... except for the college years through the early 20's... typical, right? I stayed faithful for many years, but the message stopped sitting well within my heart.  I found myself struggling with depression and eventually realized that it was worst on Saturday night... I didn't want to go. I felt a struggle between the word spoken every week, and my heart.  The words didn't sit well with Jesus' commandment "That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another." And I had to ask myself, time and time again, did this statement show love?  And time and time again, it did not.  Shaming a woman's clothing, shaming a sexual inclination, punishing a struggle with identity, shaming a reproductive decision, (all of which were none of our business) it was just not cool with me. It hurt my heart.

When it came to Christianity and politics, my faith was damaged long ago.  At a homeschool program, where I was minding my business, selling tickets for a show, a "teacher" approached me and said loudly "Are you going to vote for Obama because you're black".  (This was 2008, I am sure I blogged about this).  She followed with "you can't be Christian if you vote for Obama".   Not long after that, a leader in my church (not the pastor), when I said I did not agree with something said, "you can't have that opinion because people look up to you... if you disagree, so will they".  I wasn't done right then and there, but It did not feel right to set  what I knew what right in my heart and mind against "church obedience".  And maybe I'm just not an obedient person.  There's that.  But I feel like I can love God and Love ALL Gods people and at the same time follow the sensitive mind and heart that God gave me. So over the course of some years, my family gave up the status of being Church-going Christians to being unchurched... Christians.

And then there's Trump. I heard more than once that people were voting for him that it is the Good Christian thing to do.  That a good Christian would vote for Trump.  And good Christians were using slogans like "Trump that Bitch".... and I was like... oh-my-goodness.... this is not love.  This is not Jesus' commandment. This is not Christian.  And to add insult to injury, for Christian leaders to get behind him and support him, broke me in a way that is irreparable.

((((I do not believe that someone's private life should be dictated by the church and that it is better to have an angry racist than someone who will give women the right to their own bodies.... whenever a churched person tries to explain their Trump decision to me, this is what I get from it... that Trump is better than abortion... I say, that person's abortion is not your business... love is.))))

• I cannot participate in a faith based organization that espouses anything but love. Period.
• I cannot abide a political candidate who thrives on hate and division.
• I cannot live under a tyrant.
• And I will not be quiet in the face of hate.

So, you might want to say I am not A good Christian, and I probably am not, not by your definitions, but my faith is in God and my "rules" are in Jesus' last commandment.  If I can do that, I can die with a good heart.  In the meantime, I will live, and reject hate.

The results of this election are the results of HATE. I will fight this, in the name of Love and in the name of God. ... I don't know what I mean by that... but I will fight back.

ps.  Don't ask me to pray for that man.  I will instead pray for the innocent black and brown and gay people and the women who are being physically attacked since this snake reared his ugly head.

Anger and Loathing and the 2016 election

Yesterday I woke up at 4:30 and went to the polls to work to make sure that all my fellow citizens (that I could affect) got a change to exercise their vote. I returned home around 10pm.  I was tired, and after glancing over the results tapes from my 11 voting machines... I was discouraged.  I didn't want Trump to Win...

As of this moment, it seems as though he has.

Inspite of

Sexism,
An active Child Rape case,
Consumer Fraud,
Bankruptcies,
and other scandals...

And I am angry.  I am angry that I processed hundreds of voters yesterday and while some of them were just a-holes toward me, most of them smiled in my face, called me sweet-heart and voted against my best interest. I know that's reaching to expect any empathy, but it does get under my skin.  What I am really angry about though is that I know that countless people, many on my "Facebook friends list" and those who have "befriended" me in real life, voted against my best interest.  I am most upset because the candidate, who would at least preserve my best interest ... for at least 4 years lost... and I don't just feel uncomfortable... (I was uncomfortable with Bush 43, and then voted for him for his second term).... no, I am distraught.

And just in case I haven't spelled it out yet, here is how I feel.

I am a:

Black (The exhausting task of being black in America)

Christian Woman (Here's why these Christian Women Don't want to Live IN Donald Trump's America)

From a family from the South (Growing up Jim Crow)

Who were depressed and depressive. (Racism Breeds Depression and Other Problems)

Due to Institutional racism and Jim Crow Laws.  (Institutional Racism is our Way of Life)

And living in a world where black children are programmed to go straight to prison (Dismantling the School to Prison Pipeline)

I have friends, loved ones, and relatives who are LGBT (and/or) Q.  (Christian Parents of LGBTQ Children: The Church has been Wrong)

I am the wife of a black business executive. (Black in Corporate America & So Very Tired)

My birth father is an Immigrant, My beloved Dad (stepdad) is the son of an Immigrant, my husband, the father of my children is an immigrant.  (Trump is against legal immigration too)

I am the proud mother of a young black man (Fact Sheet: Outcomes for Young, Black Men)

And a young black women.  (Black, Poor, and Woman in Higher Education: What I Learned from Graduate School)

This is sum of who I am.

This is my legacy... and in a Trump Presidency, I feel like any ground we have made up under President Obama will be lost... socially, at the very least.  And that makes me sad, and angry, and ... stabby.

... and if you cannot relate in a tangible way to any of these issues, you ARE truly privileged, and you probably have no problems with a Trump Presidency.

Don't think I don't understand why you have voted for Trump or for 3rd party. I get it. Hillary was flawed, and like it or not, was attached to her husbands flawed legacy.  There is no way a mere woman who stood for the rights of other marginalized groups could win against a white man... any white man, ever, period.

I think white women have just learned something that all black people taught their children when I was growing up.  It made us kids so angry and we actually rejected this teaching until it was too late. It is this... Black people have to work twice as hard to get half as much.  (Black workers really do need to be twice as good.)  White women, are in the same boat. We all know that President Obama won because he was beyond reproach.  His Leadership and Character Traits were not mouth service.  He was the real thing. To have any candidate for president we need people who are pretty much sainted.  Because if this Moron of an orange human (yes, I said that) can win over experience and diplomacy, we have to admit that the deck is stacked and a penis and skin color and money trumps experience, and positivity, any day, every day.

This is my world... I understand it, but I don't have to like it, and I sure as hell don't need to pray for this presidency.  It is not a sin to pray against something... Christians have been praying against abortion for ages... so....  I am praying for protection of the under represented and the underdogs... so deal with it. Because here is the thing.  I abhor this guy.  He has fueled racism in an ugly, terrible way.  Tell yourself whatever you must.  Blame it on Obama if you will... but this man is a very, very bad man, with very bad ideas. The people from his deplorable contingent is calling him a "God" and a "King".  He is dangerous and I will not get behind him.  I will not.

So please forgive my anger and loathing this morning. But my daughter called me last night with trembling in her voice... so much that I thought she'd been in a car accident.  MY son is in disbelief right now... so maybe your non-ethnic status quo is protected for four more years, but mine is in danger.  Enjoy this. Good luck with that.

But there's always some lemonade to be made from these freaking bitter lemons.
My daughter told me last night that she is now a political activist.  We can't fight this stacked deck by just voting. We need to get out and participate.  We must act.  I am now a political activist too.  I just need a moment to find out where exactly I stand and how I will proceed.

Oh, and to anyone who thinks a Trump Presidency will bring some kind of white utopia and he will give back in any way???  You've been scammed.  Trump is all about himself and no one else.

Deep thoughts

Is Facebook killing the blog?  

Perhaps. I find that I have begun to journal there, but here are two tidbits I have written that I'd like to share:  

Oct 22

I keep waking up with one word on my mind: lenses. 

Our lenses influence how we interpret the world. They are first constructed by our parents and as children our lenses mirror theirs as we think they can do no wrong. Think of these as the eyes you are born with. Then our friends and teachers start to add adjustments to help us see things differently or more clearly. Think of these as your first pair of corrective glasses. At some point many of us decide our parents are completely crazy or that we trust others more than them, and we over correct our lenses , likely to spite them. Have you ever tried on someone else's glasses? Leaves things out of focus, doesn't it? By the time we mature we've shed a lot of the eyeglasses that we have put on over the years.. sometimes we have a lot of glasses to shed. We might have piled on numerous pairs too. Right on top of each other. Including sunglasses to help shade us and rose-colored glasses to protect our hearts. We eventually replace these multiple pairs of glasses with contact lenses crafted from the multitude of all of the adjustments we have made over the years and install them over the eyes of our parents viewpoint. Some of these contact lenses are thick and heavy, sometimes they are thin and light. But at this point the transformation is pretty much complete. 

Life events and circumstances may still make us put in some eyeglasses temporarily as we learn and experience things, but we either take those back off, or get our contact prescription corrected to integrate our new glasses. 

Then we go through life facing situation and events based on our own journeys through our custom made lenses. This is why we butt heads. So the next time you're in an argument or disagreement remember it took a lot to shape their point of view. They're not nuts or bad people... mostly. They've had different experiences. 

That's what I think.

Nov 3

I find that I navigate a world that isn't necessarily for me. I'm rarely conscious of it most of the time. Many would argue with that assertion, but I walk through the world, a world that is largely devoid of people who look like me, and I forget that I am the "one of these things that don't belong here". 

But then people remind me. A black person might say, "why do you belong to that organization, when there is one specifically for us". A non black person might make a joke about my food choices, or my hair, or me "taking off my earrings to fight someone" that makes me ask myself the same question. It's akin to someone tapping me on the shoulder and saying "you know you're black right?... just saying". 

That's kind of how I walk through this world, just being me, pretty happy to be surrounded by all the hues, and cultures and nuances, and then someone says... Hey, you're different, or, even worse, you look different, but you're special because you act like one of us. 

These micro aggressions (so glad there's a word for it now) do get under my skin and make me sad. Sad to the point of anger and depression. 

I would love to live in a world where race is nothing but a social construct and does not exist, but others don't let me. So I have embraced it as of late and folded it into my previously oblivious being and learned to deal with it. How can I pretend race is not real when people are always calling it out. Do I look at them and say "race is a social construct, so I have decided to reject it?" (actually that might be fun)... But pretending it does not exist, does not help me when my kid comes home and tells me they "played slave today" ...in a school program on purpose.. Or some kid in my daughters class asks her "do your parents beat you because you are black" and then refuse to believe her when she says no... Oh, and how about when you hear her friends (non black friends) joking that your daughter is "A STRONG BLACK WOMAN WHO DON'T NEED NO MAN".. hand snaps included. 

I know these things aren't meant to cause harm and are said out of jest or curiosity, and I don't want people to clam up and not talk at all, because people are awkward and say stupid things.... I know I do. But you can't tell me I have to ignore the fact that I am black, and all that entails when YOU won't. 

That is all. 

This is not personal... just one of those days when my existence weighs heavily on my heart.

Another "teacher" abuses student

This heavy handed treatment of our children needs to stop.

COLUMBUS, Ga. - A 13-year-old boy had to have his right leg amputated after a contractor at a Columbus, Georgia, school "body slammed" him repeatedly, an attorney for the boy's family said.

http://www.click2houston.com/news/national/teen-loses-leg-after-teacher-body-slam-lawyer-says