Primal Scream
For a few days (hours? weeks? lost track of time) I've been thinking -- pull it together. "Don't Agonize, Organize" (Florence Kennedy) kind of thing. Buck up. As my Physics Friend M. and others have said, put on my pantsuit and get out there and keep fighting.
But no.
No.
Not doing that yet.
Still in "primal scream" stage.
I'm not going to give up, but I'm also not going to normalize this with business as usual.
I'm not going to continue on as if this is okay. This is way too catastrophic on every level. It can't be normalized that quickly. We cannot listen to the MSM that gave free publicity to Trump all along, that told us he was never going to win, that she had an electoral firewall, and now wants to tell us "Okay, calm down. It won't be so bad. Let's tell him to renounce the hate and get on with running the country." That will just allow this to keep happening.
We can't calm down.
The hate has come out of hiding.
Let it stay out there. Let's deal with it, not let it crawl back and continue on with the exact policies that have stirred up so much anger in the first place.
Let it stay out there. Let's deal with it, not let it crawl back and continue on with the exact policies that have stirred up so much anger in the first place.
Yes this is the "primal scream" from everyone who is f&cking furious that a woman as smart and qualified as Hillary was passed up for...who even needs to say it? We all know how awful he is.
We know the woman who dedicated her life to helping children get medical treatment was passed over for the man who denied medical funding to his nephew who needed treatment for cerebral palsy. That says it all.
I don't think I've ever even sworn on this blog before (in our house we are giving a week free pass post-election on swearing).
Yes this is the "primal scream" and yes it's still going on and millions are still screaming, voices hoarse, and I hope the whole world hears it.
Keep screaming; start marching; keep fighting.
ReplyDelete"The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. (MLK)
We are only ten generations removed from the Salem witch trials (in now bright blue Massachusetts), five from the Civil War, two from the '60s Civil Rights movement.
Great post. Keep fighting.
Thank you Hawkeye. Love the MLK quote, which, of course you remember, Obama referenced in his acceptance speech. Good to keep perspective here...
ReplyDeleteYES. You've captured everything I've been feeling. This is not okay, and I can't pretend that it is. I refuse to participate in the normalization of this man's agenda.
ReplyDeleteYes, the consequences are catastrophic. "We know the woman who dedicated her life to helping children get medical treatment was passed over for the man who denied medical funding to his nephew's child who needed treatment for cerebral palsy. That says it all."
The "primal scream" brought me back to election night. My neighbor had texted me, asking what my plans were. I said I was staying in, but if she heard a long, loud scream later in the evening, it would be me running out to the garage to shout my joy at the top of my lungs. I was waiting for the moment I could release it. So much joy. Unrealized. Swallowed. Instead, a different scream.
Thank you for giving voice to this.
Yes, we have to carry the torch - it is what she would have wanted. Donate, call, protest, help Foster Campbell get a Senate seat...
ReplyDeleteThis Foster Campbell thing is really important I think, Bearette, and we have less than a month. So few people are talking about it that I am starting to wonder if it's real, but it is, right? I will get some useful info about it & post it asap.
ReplyDeleteSarah - Thank you for sharing your story. Many people--even Dems who love Hillary--are in the "chin up" stage already, but the highest chins I know are those of white men. I think we have to be allowed to share our "what I was doing that night" stories still. These are so important. I have more to write about your swallowed shout of joy but it is turning into another post- a topic I want to give more space to. Thank you for sharing that hopeful memory and the pain of how it turned out.
Thank you so much, Rachel, for being smart, honest and REAL. You nailed it. We are all still unleashing that slo-motion primal scream, in un-real, disbelieving, alternate, no-this-cannot-be-reality time. We seem to be in this together and yet we all feel so very betrayed and in that, we feel alone.
ReplyDeleteThe hate has come out of hiding, as has the deceit. Our new emperor sits in his castle in the sky, in his new clothes, on his ridiculous and insulting golden throne, and we wonder how folks struggling to find a job thought he could have their best interests in mind. We wonder how Obama and Clinton, either one, can sleep.
We wonder how we will actually come together and rally for the cause of love of our fellow man and woman and child. We wonder if love will trump hate, yet we don't want to give him the pleasure of even using that word in any context. We wonder if we actually have the capacity do something to stop this. We ache with the injustice of our electoral college system, feeling the latest strains of a legacy of slavery that will simply not let up. It keeps pressing our black boys into the dust, it keeps vanquishing our Mexican neighbors into the desert wastelands of their broken dreams, it keeps robbing our indigenous peoples of their very lives, and still the comfortable upstanding citizens who believe themselves to be white, believe themselves to own this American soil, continue to stare right through this very present horror, and deny that blood is on their very own hands.
Kristin - thank you. Yes - together, but so alone. I have this frantic alone feel; I identified it last night. I can't seem to shake it, even though I know there are so many -- millions -- reeling just like me.
ReplyDeleteHate and deceit. You capture it so perfectly. More soon & thank you.
Kristin. Thanks for this response. Slow-motion primal scream, and I know you've been screaming right along with me. You described it so perfectly - the new emperor, bolstered up by the help from Russia - oligarchy loves the company of a privileged few. I really do wonder how Obama and Hillary can carry on the way they do. Did you read Obama's advice to his daughters? About looking for the ways to keep helping. God, it's so hard to keep that positive view when we are faced with going back decades in the fight for equality.
ReplyDeleteSo true about using "that word" that has now taken on such a horrifying ring. Absolutely - you make the point so poetically, but this electoral college system is absolutely "the strains of a legacy of slavery" - still, those states get more than their fair share based on numbers of black people who are not allowed to vote. The absolute best primal scream about this whitelash for me came from Damon Young. I can't stop his words moving through my head. Have you read it?
Damon Young writes:
"I assumed, wrongly, that enough of them would value their own lives, their own humanity, more than the need for White supremacy to be preserved. But I failed to realize how intertwined these things are for them. There apparently is no point in even existing without existing as White. Whiteness is past an identity or status. It is their oxygen, their plasma, their connective tissue."