“Do not
go gently into that good night. Rage, rage.”
For many of us, women especially, it feels like we are entering a void
where nothing but despair dwells.
The election result seems to have shattered any notion of universally
held values which privilege goodness and kindness. It feels hopeless. It feels
bleak.
I don’t need to reiterate what this result represents – we already know,
some of us far too well. It represents a manifestation of fierce hatred. Hatred
for women, Muslims, gay people, trans people, Latino people, black people,
people with disabilities… the list goes on. In my heart I never truly believed
that a campaign built on such ferociously violent rhetoric would succeed. I
genuinely (naively) thought that human empathy would overcome hostility, and
light would overcome darkness.
I’ve spent today in a slump. Completely and utterly consumed by this overwhelming
sense of darkness. Terrified of the immense suffering that is being felt by
people of minorities in particular. Terrified that bigots everywhere have been
validated in their malice. Terrified of the social regression this symbolises.
I keep seeing quotes pop up which read, ‘Don’t mourn – organise.’ Bullshit. Let me mourn. Let us mourn. Our
grief is valid and our tears fall for a reason. The pain is still raw. Mourning
is part of the process; it is healthy and it is natural. Nothing productive will
come from burying our hurt.
But as we mourn, I urge us to rage too. Rage for the lives of our
Muslim, gay, trans, black, Latino, disabled sisters and brothers. And turn that
rage into action. Let us not descend into the comfort of normalcy. This is
not normal. In the election of Trump, hatred has prevailed and my deepest fear
is that that very hatred becomes normalised. Normalcy leads to complacency and right
now, complacency is the most dangerous prospect there is.
Let us look for ways to tangibly challenge this vitriol of hatred that
Trump so doggedly spouts.
Joining your local Thursdays In Black group is a good place to start. Grassroots
movements that hold those in positions of power accountable are urgently
needed, now more than ever. By its very existence Thursdays In Black challenges
the poisonous endorsement of rape culture by the president-elect. I urge you to
start wearing black on Thursdays – join a worldwide movement in taking a
visceral and symbolic stand against sexual violence. Let’s make it loud and
clear to Trump and his supporters that we refuse to allow the dehumanisation of
women and we refuse to let victims of sexual assault be silenced.
So let’s not delegitimise each other’s grief at this awful, awful
situation. Let’s be kind to ourselves – and to others.
And let us rage.
(If you would like to learn more about Thursdays In Black, follow this
link http://www.thursdaysinblack.org.nz/ and/or message me.)
