Reading is Resistance

“I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hate so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.” – James Baldwin

None of my blog posts have gone to plan this week and I suppose that’s to be expected. Today’s and Wednesday’s posts were supposed to be my November TBR but that doesn’t seem at all appropriate. I’ve written and rewritten this several times — I’ve deleted so many paragraphs because I’m trying hard to be one of those lights in the dark sky that Kamala asked us to be.

And still — I’m having such a hard time reckoning with how so many people were willing to hold their nose and vote for such a terrible human being. I’ve continued to be stunned by the data this election has generated. I’m watching very little news and am instead listening to BBC World News and PBS Newshour via their podcasts and am floored by how many people voted against their own interests.

I have a lot of thoughts about this; mostly musings on how human nature allows us to believe that our own personal needs are real while those of others are a result of their own shortcomings. I’ve seen so much of this in my professional work in the helping field and it’s always been frustrating to see people bash others for receiving any sort of help while they are receiving the same help. “I need this. They’re milking the system.”

How many times have we seen people in this election cycle say, “he’s not talking about me. It’s them”? Creating an “us vs them” mentality is where this candidate succeeded. He milked the system so well that he was able to prey on people’s basest fears and convince them that only he can make this country great.

Fear won again. And the next four years are going to be tough.

Today I’m thinking about how to learn from movements in our history. How earlier generations were able to inject hope into the conversation; how people were able to effect real and lasting change. How people learned to accept the differences of others and didn’t see a need to take away their rights as humans.

I wish I knew all the books to read – books on human nature, the founding of this country, racism, sexism, otherism, etc – and could get to work on the bigger assumptions behind all of this fear. I don’t. We went through all of this before, remember? Remember all of the anti-racist books, the #metoo movement reckoning, the horror of having an incompetent leader during a massive global pandemic? We’ve done this before and now we’re doing it again.

How do we get out of this cycle? How do we finally move forward without the fear of being jerked back to a past that no one actually wants to re-live when they think of the particulars.

I’d love to learn about this with you. My current work is to figure out where to start again; I will share my findings with you. If you’d like to read with me, learn with me, discuss with me, then I’d love to have you as a learning partner.

I happened to begin reading The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates this week. It feels like a good place to start.

Let’s keep going.

“There is always light, if only we’re brave enough to see it. If only we’re brave enough to be it.” Amanda Gorman