Is it time to stop saying ‘this isn’t who we are?’
When confronted with the growing prevalence of incidents of racism, violence, supremacy, or extremism, our leaders respond by defending our fundamental nature: this is not who we are. But the tendency to claim that our actions do not reflect our truth only delays the realization of that truth. If we continue to perpetuate the myth that we are all committed to our democratic ideals, we will never be able to change that which we refuse to confront. So, let’s start there.
The tendency to claim that our actions do not reflect our truth only delays the realization of that truth.
I want to know who you are. And more candidly, beyond who you want us to see, who you are going to be in the voting booth. I no longer want to feel pacified by your seeming allegiance to democracy, or disappointed with your partial commitment to constitutional ideals. In 2020, there were at least 74 million of you who knowingly voted to keep a racist, misogynistic, homophobic, and lawless man in the very office from which he would continue to perpetuate these ideologies. Maybe at that time, you looked away because your pocketbook or ideals felt heavier than your conscience. Okay. But that was yesterday. That was before a litany of hammers dropped.
Before you learned that the ex-President knew he’d lost the election but planned to declare victory regardless, and perpetuated a “Stop the Steal” rampage that led to the attack on the Capitol. Before you understood his intense pressure campaign on the Vice President, the Justice Department, and GOP state officials, and how close we came to a disruption of a peaceful transfer of power. Before you discovered that he‘d stolen more than 300 highly sensitive and classified documents from the White House or were tracking six legal landmines of lawsuits–from rape to rampant financial fraud–that he is now facing.
Before you understood … how close we came to a disruption of a peaceful transfer of power.
Before the Supreme Court overturned a nearly 50-year old constitutional right for a woman to decide what to do with her body and her life, leading to draconian abortion bans with no exceptions for rape or incest. Or before that same Supreme Court decided to reconsider cases with implications for same-sex and interracial marriage, gay sex, contraception, future elections, race, college admissions, LGBTQ rights and more.
Before Republican extremism became normalized, with Governors callously shuttling Latino men, women, and children migrants to distant blue state locales to score political points, and states began voting in extremist candidates who perpetuate the Big Lie, voter suppression, and QAnon claims–with the power to now act on their beliefs.
Before 35 states introduced 137 bills limiting what schools can teach with regard to race, American history, politics, sexual orientation and gender identity. Before state lawmakers, who passed 34 restrictive laws across 18 states making it harder to vote, would now pass 9 laws that could lead to tampering with how elections are run and how results are determined. Before 138 local school districts in 32 states banned more than 2,500 books, predominantly covering topics of sexual orientation, racism, and American history.
Before 35 states introduced 137 bills limiting what schools can teach with regard to race, American history, politics, sexual orientation and gender identity.
Before the richest man in the world, who isn’t accountable to anyone for anything, became the arbiter of social truths, science, freedoms of speech, and the common good. Or before the 82-year old husband of the third-ranking officer of our government, suffered a fractured skull at the hands of an assailant seeking to assassinate his wife.
And even before we knew that against all political odds, the Biden Administration would succeed in passing marquee legislation true to his promise to rebuild this country from the middle out: the American Rescue Plan Act, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, The Inflation Reduction Act, Juneteenth National Independence Day Act, Climate Action, bills to avoid government shut-downs, executive orders to reverse Trump-era policies and more.
Regardless of which political side of the fence you fall on, we all know a lot more than we did two years ago. But importantly, when you know better, will you do better? It is action that delineates us, not thoughts, not musings, not even our stated values. It’s what we do that defines us. It’s in our determination. It’s in our vote.
It is action that delineates us, not thoughts, not musings, not even our stated values. It’s what we do that defines us.
With midterm elections upcoming unlike any this country has ever faced, we must ask ourselves to be honest with who we are. What are our core values that we act upon? How do those values inform the media we allow ourselves to take in? Do we protect the women in our lives, or affirm the identities of our LGBTQ friends and family? Do we care enough to show up for others? How invested are we in our privilege and/or do we use it to enact change? Do we believe in the power of diversity and inclusion or do we hearken back to a time of homogeneity? And how do we weigh acting in the interest of the greater good when it might threaten our own personal financials? Answer each honestly, with no judgment, only acceptance. Know who you are and maybe even ask yourself, is this who you want to be?
I remember how devastated I felt on November 9, 2016. Incredulous that this country would elect a human acutely unfit for the highest office in the land. I’m no longer astounded by this reality, I recognize that we live in a country divided, and I see all of us now. But I do wonder whether the seismic threats to our freedoms, our democracy, and our children’s future has the power to provoke a shift in who we are. And whether on November 9, who we are just might become who we want to be.
