I have a few thoughts. You will forgive me if I take the time, right here at this moment, before the actual outcome of the election is known, to share my thoughts. In this pregnant space we have time for reflection, and I find myself reflecting on two things. These aren't new things; I've written about them here before, but they seem more relevant now than ever before. Here's the short version: compassion. One, for yourself, and then two, for other people.
Here's the long version: first, I am reminded of a conclusion I came to a while back: invest time and thought in those things you can affect, that affect you. Some people call this "think globally, act locally". Others use the Serenity Prayer. The concept is the same: when you ego attach to things you can't control, you give up your power over your own life. For myself, this realization came through sports. For years, I was a diehard Rice Owls fan. I lived and died by their football team, and to a lesser extent the baseball team. I agonized over every game, poring over statistics, sucking down news reports and podcasts. I invested in their successes. And there were some; the 1994 victory over Texas (a 100-1 chance). The College World Series. Sadly, though - at least for me - the Rice Owls have never been terribly good at sports. This is quite sensible; Rice is a great academic school, and the student-athletes spend more time being students than athletes. One day, I was watching a game - I can't ever remember which - and I literally began having heart palpitations. I was so tied up in the outcome I couldn't breathe. I hung on every play. They lost that game, and in that moment, that mattered to me very deeply. I was sad; distraught. I felt awful, like the world was a random, cold, unfeeling place. You may laugh, but if you know any sports fans, you know the feeling. And then - quite suddenly - I had a realization: I wanted them to win, so badly, but there really wasn't anything I could do. I was powerless. I wasn't playing. I was watching other men play a sport and allowing that to decide my happiness. And I decided - right then and there - I would never do that again.
So as this election trundles to its completion, I am reminded of that version of me, watching other people do something I have little to no control over, and attaching my happiness to the result. I am not suggesting that one should not get involved in politics, nor that one should not buy an occasional ticket to a Giants game. But the things that matter are the things happening right here and now; your breath in and out, your family, your job, your community. Those are things worth getting upset over.
So that's point one: don't get attached to things you can't control.
Point two: compassion for others. I've written about this before in this space. We have been so lucky the last 8 years. We've seen amazing progress: a black president, marriage equality, an attempt at universal healthcare. Those of us "on this side" see this as the march of progress: of a civil society improving itself, of the rule of logic. But there are many who do not agree. And we have been unkind to them. And now we reap that fruit. When people are angry, it does no good - in fact, it does a great deal of harm - to deny them that anger. I've said this before, and I'll say it again: you cannot legislate away racism, or hate. You cannot outlaw bigotry. That is dangerously close to using hate to wipe away hate, and that never works. You will only convince someone to stop being racist by showing them the love of someone different than them. You can only stop bigotry by showing the virtues of a life of acceptance. If you pass a law that says "Thou shalt not be a bigot", you do only two things: sow future disobedience, and incite anger. Am I saying you should allow people to be bigoted at the expense of others? No, I am not. But my focus is not on the bigot; it is on the person. If you don't accompany that law with a serious helping of kindness, love and acceptance, it will never stick. These "people", these "Trump supporters", they are people just like you. They are my parents; they are quite possibly your parents. They are real. They are sad. They are upset.
Let me tell a brief story; it's a silly story, which maybe will lighten the mood. I used to work on an online video game for about 3 years. It was a silly little thing, but it brightened the lives of about 200,000 people. Did it matter in the overall scheme of things? No, I suppose not, but then, what does? It mattered to these people. Often, things would happen in the game, that made the world unfair; that benefited some people to the exclusion of others. Some people would get upset, and sometimes, we - as benevolent despots - would act to try to make the world "more fair". But I noticed something: the people that got the most upset - always - were those whose (quote, unquote) "unfair" advantage were taken away. They would get mad, rage, quit. I remember us shaking our heads, alone in our ivory towers, at how selfish they were; at how much superior we were, intellectually, to them. I regret that, now.
Working class white people, most of them uneducated, and especially the men, used to be kings in this country. Perhaps that was unfair. You may argue that it was, and I would agree with you, but it's not my opinion that matters. We took that from them, and many times, we were not kind when we did so. We pointed the finger at them, and called them names: racist, bigot, old, washed up, stupid. We laughed at our intellectual superiority. And now we are surprised that they do not like us. That they think we're dishonest, crooked, shifty. They don't understand the world they now live in. It confuses them. They feel a sense of loss. I know this because I know some of them. I met one just yesterday, the man who dropped off my storage crate. He told me he was really wanted to vote for Trump, but he didn't like his policy on global warming. He was conflicted. He seemed like a nice guy. He was upset at where the country was headed. He might be a racist; I don't know. I guess I might be a racist too. Maybe, as the song says, we're all a little racist. I don't think I'm better than that guy, and neither does democracy. We both get a vote.
So, my point: kindness. Compassion. For everyone, including racists. That does mean we don't stop fighting racism tooth and nail. But it's the racism we're fighting against, not the racists. Racism is an act, but racists are people, and I don't fight against people, I love them. Some of you will get upset at this: you will say that this seemingly blase and nuanced attitude is just white privilege, that I can afford to be so cavalier about racism because it doesn't affect me directly. But I am not cavalier about racism; instead, I am ardent about kindness. I don't forgive racism, I forgive the racist. I will fight against bigotry, but I will not fight bigots, because it is the wrong thing to do, first and foremost, but also because - as we now see in this election - it is counterproductive. Making people feel bad about themselves never helps anyone, in the long run.
