I put a safety pin on my shirt when I got dressed this morning. Before you judge me, good or bad, let me tell you why.
I love my country. I love the ideals for which the flag stands in my own head and heart. I love the idea of equality and freedom for everyone, the idea of the American Dream where anyone can become anything. I love the idea that there is room for everyone at the table of prosperity in my country. The truth is that those are ideas and ideals; they aren't reality even for me, let alone for everyone. There is a long, LONG list of demographics and individuals to whom they do not apply. But I love my country in more than the abstract; I love her in all her flawed, imperfect, sometimes horrific reality. Why? Because I believe in those ideals and I have hope that we can make them reality.
That ideal reality is a little further away than it seemed a week ago. We have elected a man who has made it clear that -isms and phobias are alive and well in my country. I played a part in that. I feel guilty for everything I could have and should have done differently during the campaign years. Maybe I should have been more confrontational. Maybe I should have engaged in difficult conversations about politics among people with whom I disagree. Maybe, knowing the state I live in, I should have registered as a Republican voter and helped put a decent human being on the ballot during the primaries. There are a lot of things I should have done, but didn't. I'm feeling guilt and shame for what I didn't do.
Now I have to live with that guilt. I have to accept my own part in creating the predicament my country is in now. More importantly, however, I have to start where we are and do something to change it. I have to work to make this the country I hope she can be. I cannot change what I did during the last two years, but I can do better during the next two years.
For the next two years, I will not back down from difficult conversations. I will listen with genuine respect and interest to what other people have to say. I will ask questions and try to understand, especially when I don't agree. Before I condemn someone I disagree with, I will try to understand where they are coming from.
During these conversations, I will do more than listen. I will talk about my own beliefs in clear terms so there can be understanding on both sides. I will point out what I see as injustice and inhumanity. I will talk about what I believe to be right and help other people understand me. I will do so with respect, offering my conversational partners dignity and allowing them to save face as much as possible, but I will not be silent. I will talk. I will be heard. I will try to be understood.
Talking is all very well, but I will also DO. I will call my legislators. I will protest. I will defend the marginalized people who need a defense. I will volunteer my time and effort to help people find the American dream that was handed to me at birth. I will be at the mosque and the shelter.
I will be in my classroom. I had a choice of schools, and I chose to be at the school where I teach. I will do what I can to erase the fear in those scared, brown eyes and replace it with empowerment. I will be in my home, where I will show my half-Mexican granddaughter that she has the power to change her world. I will be at the wedding of my son, where he and his boyfriend will see that their rights matter to me.
I will step up in the face of bullying and harassment in any form. I will be willing to take the insults and the jeers. I will be willing to take the punch. I have thought long and hard about what it means to be an ally, and I will do what it takes to make the world safer for everyone, even if it means my own safety is less certain.
I will call out evil when and where I see it. I will not leave my country. I will not back down from the fight in front of us. I will stay and make my country be what she can be.
I wear the safety pin to remind myself, more than anyone else, to be brave enough to be the woman I should be.
