This Week's Opening Thought: November 11, 2024

This week’s opening thought: I’m a firm believer in the schadenfreude that comes with people effin’ around and finding out, but there is no joy to be found in the eff around and find out we’re all about to endure for the next four years because of how people decided to vote last week’s election—just pain and trauma.

I’m seeing all the stories and videos about people losing friends and family members, their marriages, chances at higher wages, potential citizenship, and employment because of how they decided to vote. I’m seeing the Google search results from the night of the election, which show hundreds of thousands of people looking up such things as “Are tariffs bad?” and “How can I change my vote?” well after they’ve already cast their ballots. I’m seeing small business owners who voted for this incoming administration realizing how these tariffs and tax cuts for billionaires are going to debilitate their businesses and freaking out, hoarding supplies and eliminating raises, bonuses, and even hiring. I’m seeing people saying their female, femme-identifying, and LGBTQIA+ friends and family members have walked away from them and are not coming back because of their voting decisions. I watched a video today with a Latine man upset that his neighbors of pallor, who voted for this current administration with the same level of glee that he did, refused to let their kids play with his son anymore and threatened to run them off with gunfire.

There’s no joy or amusement in any of this.

There's no “I told you so” moment.

There is no reveling in watching the leopards eat faces.

Just sadness and anger.

If it was someone’s ignorant personal decisions leading to personal consequences? That’s their cross to bear. I’m like, “Catch your L.” Depending on the situation, I might even chuckle and shake my head. But when tens of millions of U.S. voters make ignorant, bigotry-driven decisions based on blatant misinformation intent on stoking fear and insecurities that lead to long-term consequences for everyone in the country and place millions of people in danger?

It should never be eff around and everyone finds out, but y'all made that choice for all of us.

No schadenfreude, just uncertainty.

But, you know, make America great again.

This Week's Opening Thought: November 4, 2024

This week’s opening thought: If your response to people from underserved, invisible, and marginalized communities who find themselves constantly on the defensive who are struggling with the anxiety that comes with deep uncertainty about the future of this country post-Election Day is “I don’t know why everyone is so stressed,” “It’ll work itself out,” or “We made it through the last time he was President so we’ll make it through this time, too,” you are one of two things:

1. A person with a great deal of privilege who isn't emotionally mature enough to understand that everything isn’t hunky-dory just because you don't think what you perceive as your rights and freedoms or safety are at risk.

2. A person who legitimately doesn't care about those around you because you enjoy paddling around in a pool of racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, and ableism.

Real talk? Many of y'all are both, and it is not a good look.

I'm not in the business of telling people how to vote, especially during an election as divisive and multi-layered as this one. However, I will always speak truth to power regarding accountability for those who normalize the notion that everyone doesn't deserve rights, privileges, and the safety to exist and thrive.

Humans only thrive as a collective. Period. And by collective, I mean EVERY HUMAN BEING working together to ensure everyone is seen, heard, and supported in direct opposition to hate and oppression. You not caring about the collective is pure white supremacist heteronormative colonialist garbage. And if that is your stance, you need to be willing to vocally own said garbage as openly and eagerly as you toss out sentences like, “I wish everyone would chill out” during a supremely intense week in a country teetering on the brink of possibly irreparable harm for most of its citizens.

Check yourself.

This Week's Opening Thought: October 28, 2024

This week's opening thought: I will always find myself intrigued by the behavior and rhetoric people will defend and play devil’s advocate for as long as they can do so while vaguely covering up the beliefs and feelings they actually prescribe so they can avoid poking holes in the holier-than-thou masks they wear in mixed company.

Living in the United States, I have always been curious about what thoughts go through people’s heads as they justify supporting causes and people who harm communities and groups they constantly claim to care about. I often marvel at the mental gymnastics people engage in to get people to like them and view them as "good people” as they ride the fence between oppression and equity.

Trying to keep a mask on while doing cartwheels to distract the masses has to be so exhausting.

Living in Portland, I regularly find myself captivated by how many people swear they care about our homeless and housing-insecure neighbors while happily voting for every person running on a platform of “public safety” who thinks corralling human beings in need into encampments on the outskirts of town is a sound policy. I'm mystified by how hard those people work to get co-signs from communities in danger because they can't maintain their facades without endorsements from those they don't care about beyond the most surface of levels.

Their arms must be so tired, trying to juggle those chainsaws while ensuring their mask doesn't slip off.

The funny thing is how many people are bad at maintaining the act.

The sad thing is how many people still try it anyway.

The disheartening thing is how many people allow themselves to be OK with these false identities around them, lest they lose their own masks and be subject to owning who they are.

If your beliefs and behaviors are so abhorrent and harmful to one or many communities that you have to put on an act to bamboozle yourself and others into believing you're a “good person” not to own who you really are? You're not the acrobat or juggler you think you are.

You're a clown.

And I have yet to find anyone who has a mask that suitably hides clown makeup.

This Week's Opening Thought: October 21, 2024

This week's opening thought: I've had people of pallor and people of color who believe they benefit from white supremacy be straight-up, unapologetically racist right to my face with no qualms about how it might feel for me.

I prefer this over "polite" racism.

I prefer this over people saying things to me like, "I'm a credit to my race," or "You're not like the other ones," and expecting me to feel honored or flattered by their non-compliment.

I prefer this over people saying racist things about other melanated folx right in front of me and then looking at me for a co-sign because they've deemed me as safe.

I prefer this over people thinking that because I'm married to a person of pallor and I work in HR, I'm a willing participant in the oppression and harm of Black and Brown, Indigenous, Native, and melanated bodies.

I find no comfort in racism of any kind. But I find even more discomfort in the covert racism that protects somebody's belief that they are a "decent person" and places the burden of proof of harm on those they seek to directly and indirectly oppress and harm.

And what I just described was 80% of workplaces. UGH.

This Week's Opening Thought: October 7, 2024

This week's opening thought: Western culture loves talking about individualism until individualism means you as an individual have to own your contribution to an oppressive or harmful state of being. Then it's suddenly, "Well, this is a collective issue," or we're now "all in this together" when five minutes ago you were talkin' about how that one person over there needs to take responsibility for their actions or communicate differently.

Individual actions can and do impact collective survival and societal progress.

The harm you do as an individual harms the young people in your life who see you talk and behave in harmful ways, as they are now going to be carrying your unprocessed trauma and horrible actions in their brains and bodies.

The harm you do as an individual in a community or workplace amplifies the systemic oppressions of those spaces, harming the collective action of learning, unlearning, and growth needed for the collective to thrive and survive.

Being an individual in a society should come with an understanding of how easily individual decisions and actions can suppress, oppress, and damage the collective in micro and macro ways. The politics of Western society, especially over the last decade if you don't want to peer back even further, should clearly show you this, but Western culture wants us to think otherwise.

Being an individual in a collective means owning what you do and how you impact others in ways that help or harm collective progress. That means owning yourself before you go around trying to own others. It also means calling in or out others with humanity, even those individuals who have harmed others.

Be an individual who understands how they contribute or detract from the collective, not a collective of individuals.

There is a difference - and it ain't a subtle one.