I have something to ask of you, and it is simple, but it is far from small.
Tomorrow, people in the United States will undergo a transition that we have all experienced before, the passing of the highest seat in the land from one man to another. There will be people who will find this to be a moment of celebration, and those who will experience grief, but we all have one thing in common, we are again entering the unknown.
The unknown is a frightening place for some and an exhilarating for others. The sensations in your body can range from "butterflies" to knots in your stomach, from racing thoughts to laser like focus, from tingling on your skin to numbness. We all express our response to those feelings in a way unique to us, in a way that in the past has kept us "safe" from the fear. We predict, project, blame, deny, look to our personal history for patterns, look to world history for patterns...we need to feel settled in "knowing".
We do not know though. We do not know what this Presidency will bring to any of us. Not one of us has the capacity to see the future, or to fortune tell. We may make educated guesses, and some will be right, others will be wrong, and we will have an opportunity to say "SEE!! I WAS RIGHT", but really it is just the way probability works. We will ALL be right and we will ALL be wrong, perhaps about different issues, but we will ALL feel the thrill and defeat of our thoughts and ideas.
One thing is for certain though, we are all in this together. Not just here in the United States, but our elected officials in the nation's capital impact the world at large. Our policies, our choices, our language, our economy, our education and health care impact all citizens, both here and abroad. The way we model behavior for our children, both on a political and personal front informs how they will interpret the world around them and the people in it. The way we treat others says nothing about them, it simply and wholly says a lot about who we are, and how we see ourselves.
I do not understand how some people view the world. I do not understand how some people view policies that I consider essential for the safety of women, Muslims, Hispanics, Black people, GLBTQ people, disabled people and all others who are perhaps different than them. I do not understand how people can hold their own interests over the good of the whole. However, I also do not understand why people who say they are interested in human rights are finding it acceptable to attack others based on their beliefs.
Over the course of the next 24 hours, and perhaps longer if you can...can you all please non-judgmentally hold space for what the people you encounter are feeling? To put that differently, can you take a moment to, in each of your encounters both on social media and in person, see that every one of us is human first? Can you ask WHY people are afraid, or even WHY they are not? Can you listen and respect their answers? Can you stop with the hateful language, the disrespectful posts, the angry exchanges? Can you find it in you to hear the opposition and sit with your discomfort during tough conversations about sensitive topics and show respect for the person who holds views unlike your own?
I know this is a huge ask. I invite you to notice how it made you feel inside to read this, and what perhaps made you bristle. Then I invite you to remember that you are not alone, there are things that make us all bristle...but it is going to take us truly hearing and respecting each other to make any true progress, and that is what we need right now.
I am afraid, not of what I know, but of what I do not. Tomorrow we embark on the unknown together, let's do it as equal humans with vast histories and rich experiences that influence our perspectives.
It is but one simple request.
