I’ve been where you are.
Recently, Brazilian politics have been a complete mess. There was a very illegal impeachment process for our elected president, and her vice-president replaced her. The current (illegitimate) president, Michael Temer, is from an extremely conservative party, and has taken many measures to repress protests that have been happening due to his government, as well as trying to pass laws that will freeze the investments made on education and public health for about 2o years.
This is a very short paragraph resuming what’s happening in politics here, and not even highlighting the worst of the worst. What’s happening now is that we’re stuck with a government that wasn’t elected democratically, and that has zero regards towards minorities.
We’ve seen a rise in the alt right in this year of 2016. It borders on fanatiscism, which worries me a lot. It’s a bad scenery in which to be a woman, POC, part of the LGBT community, disabled… it’s a bad scenery to be a minority. I saw many hopeless people today, many friends who feel like they’re worth nothing, because that’s what this election is telling them. That their lives don’t matter. Especially when everyone around has done so much work, only for this to be completely chucked in the bin when it came to this election.
It’s not true. You’re important. So, so important.
White women have elected Trump. The majority of white people voted to elect a mysoginist, bigoted and racist man. A lot of people are feeling the fear of this election today. It feels desperate, something horrifying. I can barely write this post with any coherence, but I felt like I needed to address this.
I know, we’re tired of fighting. I know what it feels like to talk and talk and sometimes feel like no one’s listening on the other end.
So promise me this. Listen to Black and Native women when they talk about racism. Listen to women talking about sexism. Listen to people who talk about disabilities, trans people, LGBT people. That’s all I can repeat today. Listen to them. Pay attention. Learn.
Listen, listen, listen.
That’s all I can say for today. If you need to talk, I’m here for you. All I can say is that again, we must as always stick together.
I can’t convey into words what I’m feeling. Writing this post is hard, and I don’t even live in the USA. As part of world politics, I feel its impact. I’m afraid for people I know and have come to call friends. But together we’re stronger.
And we have hope for a better future. And that’s how most writers do their living on, anyway. On Hope.
Stay hopeful. And stay fighting.