This post is really about getting things out of my head. Feel free to avoid it.
So, back around a month ago I posted about training my brain to say some basic phrases of explanation in Japanese so my in-laws can understand how I feel about the US election. My in-laws are so tactful that they never asked, but the confirmation that we have slightly different views may have created a little rift between my father-in-law and myself, but again, it's nothing anyone is bringing up with me.
This is not what is stuck in my brain, making me fight invisible forces with words I'll never say.
A well meaning acquaintance and Facebook friend, who admittedly knows little of my abilities either in Japanese or as a writer, suggested I used the basic comparative phrases to indicate that I preferred Clinton.
I could be bothered by someone trying to teach me phrasing I've been using for more than a decade, but what bugs me is that she really thinks it is that simple.
Even if no one gets this, just so it is out of my head, my problems with our rapist orange commander in chief-to-be are not as simple as "I prefer bitches in pantsuits."
It's just not.
We can dissect his track record with companies he's started and failed at, his expert-level cronyism, the corruption and scandals and abuses of power already exemplified in his business practices, but all of this has already been done by proper journalists.
Our orange Hitler (and I do not use the term lightly) who clamored to the top by spouting a logic of hate is not cool with me, not just because he speaks for almost nothing I believe in, but also because he just told the bigots of America that they are justified in wanting to be treated special for being white and wanting anyone unlike them in creed, color, etc to be treated like human garbage.
My hatred of trump is not based on a love of Clinton, who I don't have the most respect for after her treatment of Bernie Sanders. My hatred of trump is based on trump. What he says, what he does, what he represents....I want nothing to do with it.
So if you really think all Clinton supporters merely "prefer" their candidate, please read some of the legit publications explaining either the allegations against your orange superhero re: child rape, or accounts of all the businesses he's destroyed.
He may be rich, but not by his own doing. He's rich because he was born into it and unless you too were born a multi-millionaire, he's not going to represent you. He doesn't care about you.
But yeah, let's just wait 40 years for all the shit to hit the fan. The ice caps are just about gone. Pollution worse than ever, and trump will strive to push that beyond where it is now. If it gets to the point where there is a Flint, Michigan situation in every state, he will not be affected, because he only cares about his interests, which are making money for his buddies, not helping you.
The weird thing is when this comes from people in interracial marriages. I just wonder if they've considered the fact that their spouses and children would be the objects of increasingly awful treatment under this regime.
But I guess if you're a Caucasian American who never went to a school in the inner cities or had to be in a place in your own country where your skin color was rare and considered a threat, you don't have to think of these things. You don't have to consider them, but you should.
Racism in Japan is different. It's usually a little side-eye occasionally, small children staring sometimes. Every once in a while, an old man might say "humph" in your direction.
The US is different. Very different. We get violent, especially when we think we have the power to do whatever we want.
And he did denounce the acts of violence, which is something I said might gain some respect, but I don't know that it has. Each of his cabinet appointments is worse than the last.
I am glad I don't live there anymore.
Here's the thing I find a lot of people on the other side of this seem to be lacking: tolerance isn't about me being better treated than you are. Feminism, by the way, is also a course for equal treatment, not special privilege when applied correctly. Tolerance means if your kid is going to school with a mostly Jewish population, they don't have to participate in the Hanukkah play. The same thing goes with any non-Christian kids at a mostly-Christian public school.
But if you watch the videos of white people melting down and screaming their candidate's name at people of other colors as if that were invoking the name of God against a demon, you should notice something important. These are not people who want to be treated equal to those around them. These are people asking for special treatment (i.e. cutting to the front of the Starbucks line) over all others. Why? Are they royalty? Nope. Special dignitaries? Nope. Olympic medalists? Nada.
Their major complaint seems to be rooted in the logic indicated by the statement, "...but I'm white."
Anyone who knew me well as a teen knows this story. There once was a car wash to raise money for a friend's sister's dance group or some such crap, and I went. most of the other car wash participants were tween-ish girls who stood around in bikinis mostly and boys with some Hispanic heritage and therefor an ability to tan. When one of the girls, the sister of my friend who happened to be half-Hispanic and tan-able, mentioned that she too was working hard, my brain constructed a great explanation of the fact that she would have a nice tan tomorrow, no pain or problems, where I already looked like a lobster and would be suffering from the effects of my lack of pigmentation for the better part of a week at best. What came out of my mouth?
"But I'm white."
Which sounded a lot more like I was trying to indicate a need for privilege over a need for better sunscreen, but my friends knew me well enough to catch my actual meaning.
So I have also said stupid shit that sounded racist. I've also said things that sounded transphobic. I've said lots of stupid things over the years but I'm not a celebrity and no one recorded most of these things, luckily enough for me.
But that doesn't excuse the insanely inflammatory shit spouted by the orange one over the course of his campaign and even after. He's not of or for the people. He is for himself, and it's sad that that is not a problem in the eyes of most people.
