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Shocked and Appalled.
I don’t know about you, but I am a totally different person than I was a year ago, after the 2016 elections. It was then I learned racism, misogyny, immigration, sexism, anti-semitism, anti-immigrant, and anti-critical thinking thrived. The new President, by example, said let the hate talk begin. With all inhibitions lifted, intolerant segments of our society went on the attack. Men in the senates and houses of representatives at the state and federal level were empowered to limit the options of every marginalized group.
Assumptions Exploded
Before the electoral college pronounced the winning candidate, I believed we lived in the best country in the world, leader in all things meaningful, and a true democratic society, which had solved it’s earlier problems of racism, sexism, and hate. Boy, was I wrong. I’d never seen or heard such rampant hate talk, and a lot of it was about me—a woman.
Powerless and Overwhelmed
Where do I go to talk about this? Understand what’s happening? Vent? Learn? I’d so insulated my whole life that I didn’t even know the questions to ask or even whom to ask?
Through a chain of unlikely events, I became a member of The Good Men Project to take the seminars for writers and platform building. In the process, I found out about the conversations GMP sponsored and decided, out of curiosity to dial up and listen.
Ignorant and Unable to Speak
My first call was to the #StopRacism convocast. People of all colors, from all over the country spoke about what it was like to live. What I heard shocked me. It was so far outside my awareness, I couldn’t even be part of the conversation. I had no idea how deep feelings ran, how much I didn’t know, and the enormous hole in my education. I could have walked away right then. Put down the phone and settled down in my easy chair with a stiff drink and binge watch anything. I didn’t. I went back again and again.
Persistence Matters
How was it possible that those unelected oligarchs had spun our history to suit their vision? They used education to brainwash me (and everyone else) and directed my thinking so that I would be easy to manipulate and part of the millions of people who said nothing and did nothing. They counted on our silence to let them take over. They did a great job because they did, indeed, take over. When did it become okay for the solid unabashed contract between the wealthy 1% and government to disenfranchise the marginalize and attack the middle class? Why did they hate women? And, what the hell was white privilege and patriarchy?
Research and Truth Matter
Okay. Okay. Clearly, there was a huge gap in my education. Back then, I had had no use for history or civics—memorizing dates and processes. Yuk. Okay. Okay. It was definitely my fault. Apology to myself and my country. Moving on. With each call, I listened, researched, and read—a lot. Every time my reaction to a comment was, “WHAT?” I raced to the source material. This time it was different. I was different. I am living through a pivotal point in our history and I don’t want to sit back and watch. I want to be part of the change.
Be Changed and Change Others
My point is, that no matter how difficult the information was to process and talk about, I did it. I learned about how we got here and continue to learn how we’re going to move forward to the country we want. It’s not going to be easy. No one can afford to stay silent. I mean that literally. The oligarchy makes its money via investments more than production. In essence, vaporware. Without an investment in the 99%, they only do better when we, the people, are doing worse. Your job and your salary are no longer a given. Nothing and no one is safe. It’s a “here today and gone tomorrow” world dictated by greed… and power, whether it is the abuse of women, men, children, and gender-fluid, or the outright disposability of men in sports, in factories, and in prisons.
Silence Is Complicity
It’s going to take small actions on our part to create the big change. Silence changes nothing. Silence says the status quo is fine. Silence says the lack of respect and humanity that exists in every segment of our society is okay. Silence may also be fear. We must not give in to that which terrifies us. We must change our perspective and be the model for the community we want.
Speak out. Join the conversation
It’s going to take conversations, every week, to keep up the awareness that “race” is a term used by the 1% to divide us. So is misogyny and sexism, and gender-fluidity, and immigrant cultures. If 99% can be kept from the truth that we are all the same, HUMAN, the oligarchy is betting on the fact that we will never form a voting block strong enough to unseat them. What can you do? You can be a force to reassert our humanity and stop the abuses on almost every segment of our society. They’re betting they can have us think like them without money and power — that we will destroy our own.
Your Voice is as Important as Your VOTE
Join me and people of all backgrounds and faiths from all over the country, Canada, and the world, for conversations on #StopRacism, #StopSexism, #Intersectionality, #DisposabiityOfMen, #PoliticalActivism, and #CallWithThePublisher. I’ve been on these calls for a year. They are all about changing the societal norms, finding and exercising our humanity, and ending abuse. No two conversations are the same within the week or in successive weeks. No guarantees as to where a topic will go. Everything is fluid and flows with ideas offered by the participants. I know. I participte. It has completely weaned me off network T.V.
Be the change. My name is Carol. Let’s talk.
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