The Day After

I am going to try not to dwell on the election here.

But first, I’m going to share a few things that happened on just the day after the election, Wednesday:

• My black friend was jeered at by three jubilant men in a pick-up truck with a big Confederate flag.
• My friend’s daughter was teased about being deported even though she was born in the US, and the mom was saying that she feels like she needs to put out a statement clarifying that she’s a legal immigrant and naturalized US citizen.
• My friend had to calm her Muslim children and try to reassure them that they would be okay.
• My friend’s college-age daughter was talking about the election with her friend when a male student who’d overheard leaned in and said, “Go suck a dick and die.”

Among my acquaintances, relatives, and friends who say it’s time to move on and get over this election, all of them are white and Christian (or with a Christian background). I think that they honestly just don’t understand how threatening the environment has become for so many people.

And by “environment” I don’t mean the one that’s in trouble because Trump’s main EPA guy is a global warming skeptic (although when Cute W mentioned this I had to do deep breathing exercises for a minute).

This is an environment of literal, direct threats, things like a strange guy hissing obscenities out of nowhere. It’s coming from people who have been emboldened by the words and actions of our president-elect and his support of almost half of the electorate.  No need for me to check the news to feel alarmed. People I care about are being hurt and frightened. And that is unacceptable.