Take A Stand

This semester has already proved to be INTENSE. I go back and forth from wanting to cry, scream, physically injure, or just crumble into a pile on my floor.

There's been a lot of moments that I feel overwhelmed with what I'm doing, confused and questioning if  driving boxes of posters around, asking people for donations, and sitting on my bedroom floor for 8 hours stuffing packets is doing anything good for the World. Wondering if I am fulfilling my Social Work Masters role.

Then, I watched the documentary "13th".. a documentary made by Ava DuVernay that explores the history of racial inequality in the United States, and especially focuses on the fact that the nation's prisons are disproportionately filled with African Americans. While I watched this I had been on bedroom floor for 6 hours already filling 200 packets for my internship (I've now done 400+). My back hurt, my fingers were getting blisters, and I was having moments of frustration because this didn't feel like something a masters student should be doing.

This documentary did a lot of reviewing and comparing history of racial inequality from the days of slavery to right now. With Donald Trump as our president, it's all the same. History is repeating itself. If you see videos and photos from the Civil Rights Campaign led by Martin Luther King JR, you know that the Black Lives Matter Campaign, the protests for immigrants rights, the fight against building a wall around our country, and fighting for basic human rights are all so similar. Our country holds systematic oppression over our heads. African American's are being killed and put in jails at an astounding rate (The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander) , our jail system is the new slave system. We treat people experiencing homelessness like criminals and dirty barbarians, just for trying to sleep and eat, to survive! We are banning people from coming into our country that used to pride itself on being diverse and free. And we have a president that is a known sexist, bigot, and ignorant ass that spends weekends on his golf resort while Puerto Rico is begging for food and water just to survive.

Anyway on this night my emotions were overpowering when I looked down and really truly realized that I was stuffing these packets so people would be prepared to get kicked out of our country. They are immigration packets filled with resources for those to know their rights, what was safe to share, who was safe to contact, and what to do with their children, homes, and finances if something were to happen to them. Do you understand how bizarre it is that I even had to be doing this?! When did this happen? How did this happen? I do know that if I was alive during the Civil Rights Movement I would've been doing the same thing, I would be on those buses protesting, I would stuff packets for nights on end. Because it's the little things that count. Me, as one person, will not change our system, I cannot get Donald Trump impeached, I can't keep a wall from being built on our borders, but I can stuff packets for 8 hours. That is how I can help.

I might never know, but with everything going on in our country all I can do is make the commitment. I will commit to fighting for justice, peace, and human rights.  I will focus on what is in my control. I will turn my anger, my sadness, my frustration into action. We will fight back. And we will fall, and you bet your ass we will stand again. This is our time. Our country is in a time of transition, and it can go one of two ways. Fall farther into our disgusting dehumanization we call policy and our insane economic inequality. Or we can stand up together, form a united front, and change our policies to support all humans. A country built on peace and acceptance in all forms.

Make the commitment with me.
I know politics is overwhelming and intimidating. I've only been focused on this field for about 4 months and I am still so far behind. Most meetings I walk into I have NO idea what's going on, I feel like I have nothing to say and if I open my mouth ignorance will leak from it. But also, I am able to write a post like this and feel comfortable sharing my views because it feels right. Listen to your own heart, because it knows what is right. Keep learning, trying, and fighting. Ignorance is NOT bliss. Our country has gotten to this point because too many people feel intimidated and turn the news off, ignore the radio, and don't vote.

Get involved in anyway you can, whether that be reading articles, listening to bi-partisan news, looking at pictures that spark empathy, standing in at a protest that maybe you're not totally sure what's going on, ASK QUESTIONS, and choose to learn. We are all capable and strong human beings.

A poem by Sherman Alexie addressing the hate in our country:

Hymn

Why do we measure people's capacity
To love by how well they love their progeny?

That kind of love is easy. Encoded.
Any lion can be devoted

To its cubs. Any insect, be it prey
Or predator, worships its own DNA.

Like the wolf, elephant, bear, and bees,
We humans are programmed to love what we conceive.

That's why it's so shocking when a neighbor
Drives his car into a pond and slaughter–

Drowns his children. And that's why we curse
The mother who leaves her kids—her hearth—

And never returns. That kind of betrayal
Rattles our souls. That shit is biblical.

So, yes, we should grieve an ocean
When we encounter a caretaker so broken.

But I'm not going to send you a card
For being a decent parent. It ain't that hard

To love somebody who resembles you.
If you want an ode then join the endless queue

Of people who are good to their next of kin—
Who somehow love people with the same chin

And skin and religion and accent and eyes.
So you love your sibling? Big fucking surprise.

But how much do you love the strange and stranger?
Hey, Caveman, do you see only danger

When you peer into the night? Are you afraid
Of the country that exists outside of your cave?

Hey, Caveman, when are you going to evolve?
Are you still baffled by the way the earth revolves

Around the sun and not the other way around?
Are you terrified by the ever-shifting ground?

Hey, Trump, I know you weren't loved enough
By your sandpaper father, who roughed and roughed

And roughed the world. I have some empathy
For the boy you were. But, damn, your incivility,

Your volcanic hostility, your lists
Of enemies, your moral apocalypse—

All of it makes you dumb and dangerous.
You are the Antichrist we need to antitrust.

Or maybe you're only a minor league
Dictator—temporary, small, and weak.

You've wounded our country. It might heal.
And yet, I think of what you've revealed

About the millions and millions of people
Who worship beneath your tarnished steeple.

Those folks admire your lack of compassion.
They think it's honest and wonderfully old-fashioned.

They call you traditional and Christian.
LOL! You've given them permission

To be callous. They have been rewarded
For being heavily armed and heavily guarded.

You've convinced them that their deadly sins
(Envy, wrath, greed) have transformed into wins.

Of course, I'm also fragile and finite and flawed.
I have yet to fully atone for the pain I've caused.

I'm an atheist who believes in grace if not in God.
I'm a humanist who thinks that we’re all not

Humane enough. I think of someone who loves me—
A friend I love back—and how he didn't believe

How much I grieved the death of Prince and his paisley.
My friend doubted that anyone could grieve so deeply

The death of any stranger, especially a star.
"It doesn't feel real," he said. If I could play guitar

And sing, I would have turned purple and roared
One hundred Prince songs—every lick and chord—

But I think my friend would have still doubted me.
And now, in the context of this poem, I can see

That my friend’s love was the kind that only burns
In expectation of a fire in return.

He’s no longer my friend. I mourn that loss.
But, in the Trump aftermath, I've measured the costs

And benefits of loving those who don't love
Strangers. After all, I'm often the odd one—

The strangest stranger—in any field or room.
"He was weird" will be carved into my tomb.

But it’s wrong to measure my family and friends
By where their love for me begins or ends.

It’s too easy to keep a domestic score.
This world demands more love than that. More.

So let me ask demanding questions: Will you be
Eyes for the blind? Will you become the feet

For the wounded? Will you protect the poor?
Will you welcome the lost to your shore?

Will you battle the blood-thieves
And rescue the powerless from their teeth?

Who will you be? Who will I become
As we gather in this terrible kingdom?

My friends, I'm not quite sure what I should do.
I'm as angry and afraid and disillusioned as you.

But I do know this: I will resist hate. I will resist.
I will stand and sing my love. I will use my fist

To drum and drum my love. I will write and read poems
That offer the warmth and shelter of any good home.

I will sing for people who might not sing for me.
I will sing for people who are not my family.

I will sing honor songs for the unfamilar and new.
I will visit a different church and pray in a different pew.

I will silently sit and carefully listen to new stories
About other people’s tragedies and glories.

I will not assume my pain and joy are better.
I will not claim my people invented gravity or weather.

And, oh, I know I will still feel my rage and rage and rage
But I won’t act like I’m the only person onstage.

I am one more citizen marching against hatred.
Alone, we are defenseless. Collected, we are sacred.

We will march by the millions. We will tremble and grieve.
We will praise and weep and laugh. We will believe.

We will be courageous with our love. We will risk danger
As we sing and sing and sing to welcome strangers.]]

-Sherman Alexie