Change scares some people and, let’s admit it, having an African-American president was quite the change from his melanin-lacking predecessors. It must have been even more of a shock to Trump’s and to his supports’ systems when that same president was elected, not once but twice, and all that he managed to do with an obstructionist Congress. Having a Black man in the White House be successful when the (mainly White opposition members of) Congress was so obstructionist? Inconceivable. Their worldview was upended 8 years ago.
So, this election was their chance to set their worldview aright, again. They got a candidate who not only spoke their language, but said things in public they only dreamed of saying in public. Now, they have a president who says one thing and then does the exact opposite. But, they will forgive him that because he is a White man who says incredibly uncouth things in very public fora. And, because there is still institutionalized, internalized and inherent bigotry and misogyny in our society, this double standard of letting Trump’s lies and deceit slide while holding everyone who is not White or male or straight to a different standard will continue . . . unless we are aware of our own language.
The best way to protect our progress is to remain aware of how we are using language. We need to keep our language compassionate, inclusive and progressive. We need to stand up, make our voices heard and remind people about all the progress we made because of our inclusive nature. Remind them on a daily basis that what they are looking at now is nothing like what we lived under the Obama Administration. Remind them of the message in the diary, “An Obama staffer’s parting note to progressives.”
Last week, I wrote a piece, “Changing Our Language.” I was trying to raise awareness about how our language seems to have changed with Administrations. I wanted to remind people here is that we do not need to allow Trump and his supporters to dictate how we engage. Trump and his supporters assume that everyone has an “us versus them” mentality. We do not have to play by their rules. We will not play the “us versus them” game. We must continue to play the “everybody does better when everybody does better” (thank you, Pres. Bill Clinton!) game.
We need to continue to speak out and call out the lies and deceit and bigotry. We need to continue to remind people of our recent history. We need to continue to work towards forming a more perfect Union by bridging divides, not creating them. We need to continue the conversation with others. Rather than focusing on differences, we need to acknowledge that, while there are some differences, there are more similarities.
Do not get pulled down to their level. See if they won’t come up to meet us where we are. We cannot abandon our civility and our integrity as we resist this new era of unprecedented unpopularity, deceit and cognitive dissonance.
And, most importantly, we need to remember Michelle Obama’s words of wisdom, “When they go low, we go high.”