(no subject)
I think the hardest part about this election is the refutation of everything I stand for. It's not just that I'm a bleeding-heart liberal and believe in liberty and justice for all (not just people we like or who look like us). It's also that I am a scientist. I believe in facts, evidence and rationality. I respect facts. And next year there will be a man in the Oval Office who literally believes in the opposite of all these things. To him, equality is about inequality; to him, facts are what he says they are; to him, it's acceptable to legislate hatred and discrimination; to him, it's okay to turn this country even further into an oligarchy than it already is.
I think the hardest part about this election is that, when it happened, I had gotten married a week ago. We haven't gone on our honeymoon yet (we can't until summer). We haven't decided if we even want to, in preference to settling down and starting a family. But how can I bring children into the world if I know for a fact that the nukes could fly at any second? That, by voting a narcissistic bully into office, we have doomed ourselves? Because, even without nukes, he's gutting the EPA. It may already be too late to avoid catastrophic climate change, but now we're not even going to try. The human race is over. Hell, life on Earth may be over. Marriage is about hope and joy and creating a future: well, THERE IS NO FUTURE. Every marriage on the planet ceased to matter on Tuesday. I was able to be a full member of the human race for only seven days.
I think the hardest part about this election is that my home has been taken from me. Hate crimes have exploded. Muslims are getting choked with their own hijabs. A Saudi Arabian was just murdered. Black people and gays are getting taunted in the street, Mexicans are being laughed at re: the wall. And the counter-argument -- that, as a Chinese, as an East Asian, I haven't really been the subject of racism since the Vietnam War -- is also no longer true. Only two days after the election, there was a hate crime against a Vietnamese woman in Minnesota. Minnesota, which voted blue. I was born in California to naturalized citizens; English is my native (and only) language; I have lived in America all my life. But, because I have a skin color that has a bit more melanin than others, none of that is relevant any more. America is who we say it is... and on Tuesday, half the country voted that I am no longer American.
In the insane event that the idea actually makes it to legislature, I'm not going to vote in favor of California seceding. But I sure as hell want to. I mean, they clearly don't want us! And we don't want to be here either. Why's there a problem?
After he won, I talked about just throwing myself off the roof and ending it now. I still haven't ruled it out.
I think the hardest part about this election is that, when it happened, I had gotten married a week ago. We haven't gone on our honeymoon yet (we can't until summer). We haven't decided if we even want to, in preference to settling down and starting a family. But how can I bring children into the world if I know for a fact that the nukes could fly at any second? That, by voting a narcissistic bully into office, we have doomed ourselves? Because, even without nukes, he's gutting the EPA. It may already be too late to avoid catastrophic climate change, but now we're not even going to try. The human race is over. Hell, life on Earth may be over. Marriage is about hope and joy and creating a future: well, THERE IS NO FUTURE. Every marriage on the planet ceased to matter on Tuesday. I was able to be a full member of the human race for only seven days.
I think the hardest part about this election is that my home has been taken from me. Hate crimes have exploded. Muslims are getting choked with their own hijabs. A Saudi Arabian was just murdered. Black people and gays are getting taunted in the street, Mexicans are being laughed at re: the wall. And the counter-argument -- that, as a Chinese, as an East Asian, I haven't really been the subject of racism since the Vietnam War -- is also no longer true. Only two days after the election, there was a hate crime against a Vietnamese woman in Minnesota. Minnesota, which voted blue. I was born in California to naturalized citizens; English is my native (and only) language; I have lived in America all my life. But, because I have a skin color that has a bit more melanin than others, none of that is relevant any more. America is who we say it is... and on Tuesday, half the country voted that I am no longer American.
In the insane event that the idea actually makes it to legislature, I'm not going to vote in favor of California seceding. But I sure as hell want to. I mean, they clearly don't want us! And we don't want to be here either. Why's there a problem?
After he won, I talked about just throwing myself off the roof and ending it now. I still haven't ruled it out.