Why now?
9:14 PM
I've seen many conservative people point out that racism and genocide and all kinds of horrible things have been going on in the world forever, yet liberal folks are choosing now to take to the streets. Usually I see them say this to make the point that we're whiners and hypocrites who are just mad about losing.
But there's a kernel of truth in what they're saying, even if we don't like to hear it, so I've been making the effort to ask myself not just why I'm worked up now, but why I didn't get this worked up before. Why am I awake at night worrying about refugees when there have always been refugees? Why am I worried about the rural/urban divide when it didn't just happen overnight? Why am I so fearful for the troops when I've always had friends and family members in the armed forces and we've been at war for so much of my life? Why does this pervasive stress gnaw at me all day like the poke of a tag that needs to be cut out of a shirt?
The truth is, I've always been grateful to be an American partly because I thought it was a bit of a free pass. I thought I would live my whole life without any wars being fought on our soil, and I was under the false assumption that for every step back that we take, we'd end up taking two more steps forward toward equal rights. Think me a fool or a jerk if you like, but in my daily existence as a white middle-class person in Oregon, I didn't see much that would give me reason to think otherwise. People didn't share articles on social media until I was well into adulthood, so I used to read the local paper (which in Oregon is often biased more toward conservatives, believe it or not) and watch the local news (which is biased more toward stories about how the world will end when it snows). My insular life enabled me to underestimate the fragility of our democracy and how far we still have to go.
Now the Chinese are saying war with the US is becoming increasingly likely. Now my bubble has been burst by footage and stories of what it's like to have black or brown skin in America. Now I've seen the changes in my garden as the temperatures have risen. Now there is a man in the White House who seems to have little respect for this country or its people, who has a white supremacist by his side, and who thinks foreign diplomacy means Tweeting whatever strikes you while you drop a deuce. Now I've seen things I'll never be able to unsee, including two images of Syrian children, one covered in blood and dust with trauma in his eyes, the other crumpled and lifeless with his innocent face to the ground. The "Why now?" part is easy. The question of "Why not before?" is harder.
I've always been politically engaged—a friend and I put together Get Out the Vote drives in grad school and stood outside throughout a freezing Boston winter telling people about Howard Dean; I canvased and phone-banked for a Portland mayoral candidate; I've donated a decent chunk of money over the years to candidates and organizations; I even served as campaign manager for a national Congressional candidate (who, mind you, was one of the few out "Republicans for Obama" and won the Republican and Independent primaries in that election)—but I definitely feel more engaged now than I ever have before. Why is that?
There is a flow to everything, and we see things when it's time for us to see them. Bernie Sanders, for example, has been very consistently the same guy throughout his life, but he entered the broader national consciousness over the past few years because the right time had come. I see things going on of which I was not conscious before. Perhaps I see them because of social media or perhaps it's because I'm finally ready, but whatever the reason, now that I know so vividly of their occurrence, I find them unacceptable and have to do something.
We are flowing toward a turning point, and I'm sticking my foot in the water and hoping I can help shift the direction of this wave. America's founding ideals feel more alive to me than the blood coursing through my own veins. We have to remember that those ideals exist within us, outside us, before us and after us, and they are more important than any one of us.
We can shift the wave; we'll just need a lot of feet.
We can shift the wave; we'll just need a lot of feet.
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