Skip to main content

In response to the election

 

Much of our nation has been rocked recently in the wake of the election.  There are intense emotions being felt throughout our community and our nation on both sides of the political aisle. 

We are at a pivotal stage in an event that affects every corner of our community. 

 We are at a pivotal stage in intentionally deciding how we react to this event.  

Of all the luxuries we have in the United States, we do not have the luxury of alienating any one group of people; regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, sex, or political beliefs. 

Many people are feeling strong emotions they have every right to feel.  Everyone has the right to their own true emotions. Everyone is equally as responsible for managing their actions and reactions within those emotions.  

I hold my own fears and concerns regarding the election because of who I am and my experiences.  But I also have tools at my disposal to help self-regulate when emotions become too strong to handle; things like deep breathing, taking a walk, and meditation among many other practices.  I have the power and opportunity to take action to help others and a social responsibility to do so.

Not everyone has been given the opportunity or knowledge to develop these kinds of skills and outlets.  One simple, though sometimes difficult, step we can all take is to make an intentional choice for how we approach an event.   

Our default approach as humans is usually “what’s wrong.” For those that did not vote for President Elect Trump, questions are asked like, “how could someone support a man that preaches racism, sexism, bigotry; a man that brags about sexually assaulting women?” For those that did not vote for Hillary Clinton, questions are asked like, “how could someone support a woman that is so corrupt, who caused such a scandal with a private email server and the devastation of Benghazi, someone who is owned by the big corporations?”

These questions may get at the core of our personal confusion but they will not provide us with a true understanding of why our neighbors voted for either candidate. 

Instead, I challenge us all to ask “what’s happened.”  What have people experienced that led to their voting for either candidate? What living situations, challenges, fears, and hopes affected the casting of their vote?

Looking at the voting results from my region, including Hood River, Klickitat, Sherman, Skamania, and Wasco counties, 16,661 people voted for Clinton and 16,895 people voted for Trump.

As we have the right to our emotions and thoughts we must also afford that right to others, even to those with whom we disagree.  If we want to heal the wounds and ever expanding distance developing in the political environment in our country and our community, we must approach the situation from the perspective of “what’s happened.” 

Only this will get to the core of the issues. 

Only this will provide us the answers we truly seek. 

Anything else will only get at the symptoms and if we only address the symptoms, we will not reach a place of healing or understanding.  We all have the power and social responsibility to help create a community where all people feel safe, accepted, and understood even if we all do not agree.  What will you do with your power?

Sincerely,

Claire Ranit

http://createresiliency.org/blog/response-election 

Add Comment

Comments (3)

Newest · Oldest · Popular

50% Election Split, 50% Attachment Trauma
Thank you, Claire; brilliant!
Ghandi, Dr. King, Mandela, always repeated: "Be the change you seek." 
We can never by rage (or its sister, outrage), stop rage. I've heard from so many on both sides of this whose innards are being torn apart since Nov. 8.
Humans are built to receive deep enough mammalian attachment as infants that we learn that feelings aren't scary, so now we can instinctively feel our own feelings and release them.
Sadly, the attachment literature shows that 45-50% of us don't receive deep enough attachment as infants to do this as adults. That's why 50% of us are now projecting our rage onto others: http://attachmentdisorderheali...rview-aai-mary-main/
It's not "What's wrong with you?" - it's "What happened  to you?"
Kathy Brous, Dana Point, CA
Co-founder, Orange County (CA) ACEs Task Force
http://attachmentdisorderhealing.com/allan-schore/

Last edited by Kathy Brous

Claire, I understand in what you say. But I look at this as an opportunity. We need to shake off the rust of this democracy and people need to understand you just can't participate once every 4 years. This country needs to be turned upside down and we will all survive it.

My oldest daughter is as mad as hell and she has dragon breathing nostrils and sparks coming off her heals. She's taking her daughter to the next local demonstration and if the one in Washington after inauguration happens in January, she will go to that one to.

Another daughter of mine wrote this;

White Supremacy’s Extinction Burst

I have a cat. She’s a bitch. I love her, but she’s a bitch. In the first several months after we got her she had some bad behaviors, the worst of which was waking us up between 3 and 5 in the morning. My boyfriend Brooks consulted the Internet and figured out how to get the bad behaviors to stop. We had to completely ignore and endure her pouncing on our heads at whatever awful hour. During the last week or two before she stopped, she acted like an intense asshole. We were warned that during this part of the process the behaviors would intensify right before they ended for good. This is called the extinction burst.

When Obama was elected president and all the deep-seated, institutionalized racism, sexism etc. in American culture that hid in plain sight finally bubbled to the surface, I began to imagine the white male supremacists and their proxies gathering in their bunkers for their last stand. And then a day after Trump’s election I finally had the terminology to describe what my anthropological brain was observing. White supremacy is experiencing its extinction burst.

My cat analogy ends there, though. Obviously I’m not going to handle the extinction period of white supremacy by ignoring it. And it will definitely last longer than a week or two, and could last longer than four years for all I know. But years of studying monkeys and human behavior as an anthropologist has stored terabytes of behavioral data in my brain, which gets automatically calculated and applied as I watch the world. The probability that white supremacy’s dominating hold on our culture will go extinct in my lifetime is high.

My feelings

The hardest part of the election’s outcome is sorting through all the cognitive dissonance. When it comes to people who aren’t my cat, I can’t control anyone’s beliefs or actions in response to Trump’s election. But, as Charles Darwin said, “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.” I do have control over my beliefs and my actions, and I have decided to adapt.

I can’t hate Trump supporters. I’m too empathetic as a writer. Yeah, I think the rich and elite who support him have a nice warm place in hell waiting for them, but I’m not going to concentrate my efforts on them. When it comes to the middle, working, and damn poor classes that support Trump, that’s where I can act. A lot of people suffer from a lack of financial stability and education, even in the middle class. No one sits well with uncertainty, and knowledge defeats fear.

I was definitely complacent before the election. I was going to leave it to Bernie or Hillary to fix everything while I continued on with my life. But because Trump got elected, it placed the HUGE responsibility to work on the country’s problems on OUR — the people’s — shoulders. It’s an intense weight that many of us feel crushed by right now.

My actions

Diversity is trending in the mainstream and the markets are capitalizing on it. In games, toys, and most products, people are working on including everyone. Where I currently work, many major companies are requesting online courses on diversity in the workplace and why that’s important. In the writing field, the majority of agents and publications are searching for and accepting diverse authors and stories, specifically stating they are tired of the same old narrative. The counter force to Trump and his supporters is a living, healthy, progressive organism.

To keep the engines of change barreling through white supremacy’s extinction burst, I’ve decided to donate whatever I can spare to organizations that feed and educate people who are lacking these much needed resources. I want to think carefully about how, as an individual, I can act in response to whatever shitty consequences occur during Trump’s presidency. And of course, since I am a writer, I am going to write. A LOT. I have a liberal animated sitcom pilot to write that is the perfect antidote for a Trump presidency.

My secret optimism

I’ve been hiding my optimism. No one wants to see it right now, and I get it. People need time to process and determine their part in this progressive push through white supremacy’s extinction burst. Especially those who are surrounded by Trump supporters. I shared my thoughts with someone recently who is on the same side of the election as me, and he said, “I would like to believe you, but this is how Hitler came to power.” I thought of my response too late, but what I wanted to say is: Yeah, we may see history repeating itself, but since it already happened, we know the future and therefore can intervene to change it (like Doc Brown said in Back to the Future III).

Recently, a Trump supporter screamed fatphobic, misogynistic things in my friend’s face on the street and walked away. The woman next to her at the bus stop wished her well and another woman she didn’t know hugged her. The data says that’s two acts of kindness against one act of hate. Good outnumbers hate, regardless of the election’s outcome.

Post
Copyright © 2023, PACEsConnection. All rights reserved.
×
×
×
×
Link copied to your clipboard.
×