This Nasty, White, Educated Woman Stands with the Oppressed

This morning, I arrived home just after midnight.  My children and I had watched the election returns on my laptop, while driving, over the previous four hours.  After getting the youngest two off to bed, we all continued to wait for the final blow.

As I sat there with my kind, respectful sons who know that the things they whisper in the locker room had better also be things they can shout in the sanctuary, I uttered something between a wish and a prayer, “Please don’t let Michigan turn red.  Please don’t let it project next.  Please, not our state.”  As I sat there with my strong, intelligent teenage daughter who spent part of this election process learning new slang terms for the parts of her body that men should never touch without permission, “Please, do not allow her to see the state in which her mother voted green project as the one that lands this man in the White House.  Please.”  I wanted my ballot back.  It was sickening.

Well, as anyone who was still awake at that hour knows, there was still some time before the results were final.  Snuggled up next to these incredible people, I fell asleep.  It had been a long day.  I woke to the sound of incredulity.  I didn’t even realize that Michigan had, indeed, turned blue until later in the morning.  It is the first time I can ever remember breathing a sigh of relief over the fact that my vote made no difference, after all.  (As an edit… already…  I see that it may have turned back to “undecided” as of tonight, but it still doesn’t matter.)

I stayed largely unplugged, today.  That’s saying something, because it is no easy task (but this is a post for another time).  I simply decided my day would be far more productive if I prayed for people whose lives I could legitimately impact and spent some time offering empathy and comfort to those who were miserable.  I did send as many heart stickers as possible to my dear, sweet, hurting friends who have specific reasons for increased anxiety over this election outcome.  And this, of course, got me thinking about the horrific media coverage last night, regarding demographics.

I don’t ever recall hearing so much about the black male vote… and the white suburban female vote… and the Muslim millennial vote… and the college graduate Hispanic vote… and the Asian evangelical with more than two tattoos but less that fourteen piercings vote…  OK, I made the last one up, but my point is the newscasters seemed to feel as if it was necessary to divide people down into every possible category, and the truth is I think we have enough division and discrimination without pointing it out in this way.  Please don’t misunderstand.  I’m not saying we should ignore diversity.  I think we should celebrate it wildly!  But this was not celebratory, and the telling words were terms like “them” as opposed to “us.”  

As I thought this through, the following phrase came to mind: This nasty, white, educated woman stands with the oppressed. 

And friends, don’t worry.  There are many of us, and we are strong.  This is love.  Love will never be dictated, eliminated, or regulated.  They will know us by our love.  It can’t be stopped.  Love on…

L.