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| How I Feel about Mr. Narcissist |
There are many times in my life when I wanted to shut down, tune out and drop onto my couch. The plan of ease--- to envelop myself in novels and magazines. Certainly November 9th was one of those days but guess what, I had helped create and organize a gathering for over 100 people in our small town and that was not an option. I am forever grateful that I showed up, listened, talked and energized myself and others that evening. Groups of like minded, loving people helps the spirit.
I recently read the Smithsonian Magazine from September about the African Americans experience in our country and the rough road to freedom from slavery. [In no way is our current situation similar to what the African Americans suffered after the civil war but we do have to cope now with a grossly uneducated person about to walk into the White House with no experience and overwhelming prejudices. Let me continue.] One of the articles described Sankofa, the non profit organization founded by Harry Belafonte and his daughter Gina. Belafonte recalled that Usher, the singer needed help. He was angry about the people getting murdered by police officers. So in order to bring awareness to the general population they made a video titled "Chains". The video forced viewers to stare into the eyes of unarmed people who were killed by police. If the camera detected a wandering gaze, the words "Don't Look Away" appeared and the video stopped playing. The film centered on images that are painful to look at and worse to address. People being killed for being black, yellow or brown.
Today I am focused on all of the people who have turned away, looked away from their citizenship, their duty to vote and enabled the T to become, arguably the most powerful person in the world. How when so much was at stake could anyone do that? What made these citizens sit at home, blithely go to work and walk out on their civic responsibility? Baffling to say the least. They decided to turn away.
How can those who were non participants become part of the solution of this terrible problem that has been thrust into our lives? I urge all of you non participants to do several small things.
1. Make a phones call to your political representatives.
No matter how unresponsive you believe them to be, do it anyway, numbers count. Do the call with as much politeness as you can muster and tell them of your concerns. Honestly it takes seconds. Remember what's at stake: they intend to cut off funds for various environmental projects and want to privatize social security and medicare, and disassemble the ACA. It's going to take every last one of us insisting that they listen to the majority. We are the majority. HRC won by 3 million votes.
2. Participate at the local level The local level being the various boards, community organizations or of course the Democratic party. Consider running for office, precinct committee officer, school board, county commissioner, dog catcher, whatever. It is vastly important that we have generous, kind, intelligent people in our governments large and small. Right now the biggest roles are being filled by ill equipped and unqualified people that have no business being trusted by these high offices and in fact want to disrupt the various cabinets they've been appointed to.
3. Write, speak, march, show up. It is no longer okay just to grouse at home or with your friends, we need action and plenty of it to make a change. Letters to the editor of papers small and large, attending meetings and discussing issues that are important to you and the community you live in, marching down the street and showing up to be a voice for change. Word of advice, screaming and being obnoxious is unnecessary and may even hurt your cause. Forceful, focus, insistent and persuasive is more accessible. Hence, no screaming at people, even if you're frustrated and angry. Go throw rocks into the water, or write a blog about the stupidity of certain people, it helps especially if you couple the anger with all of the good actions mentioned here. Think about it, do you react well to being screamed at?
4. Give generously to causes you care about. Want to have clean air and water? That is absolutely threatened by T's choice. His choice is a climate change denier and now will be heading the Environmental Protection Agency. Environmental Defense Fund, Sierra Club want our environment safe and protected, help them. Women's rights? Planned Parenthood is a protection for women and deserves our support. Human rights? the ACLU was one of the only organizations who stood up to the government when they incarcerated the Japanese during WWII. Remember no Germans were incarcerated, it was definitely a racist imprisonment. Racism is overt now, don't turn away, don't look away. Stand up for your neighbor, your fellow citizens as you would want them to stand up for you if you were a minority.
5. Seek goodness and humor, do acts of kindness every day
One of the things that I endlessly talked to my clients about was be aware and amused every day even if it feels like there is nothing to be amused about. I've taken to re reading Calvin and Hobbes, such good bed companions and a guaranteed laugh per page. The other thing is so simple: kindness doesn't cost a cent and yet it pays such great dividends. Be kind no matter what. Make someone laugh or smile every day.
6. Help create the kind of world that you want a beloved child to inherit. It is that important.
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| The best reason to fight for clean air and water and human rights |
