Five years ago I would say I did not have a judgmental bone in my body. I thrived on diversity, I was raised in SF with the gay rights community, was there when Harvey Milk was murdered, knew all kind of people from all walk of life and from all over the globe. I felt genuinely warm and fuzzy towards everyone.
I spent a great deal of time doing volunteer work advocating for women and children. I volunteered my legal skills at the DV shelter, gave legal advice to renters facing eviction from slumlords and much more. We did grassroots political groups, watchdogging city/council/state budgetary spending, and so on.
Black Lives Matter is what changed me. That was the beginning of my turning away from the warm and fuzzy, love for the downtrodden, helping the helpless, and such. It started being an itch that just bugged the shit out of me. I'm not the type to judge without being more informed about all sides of an issue, so I go deeper and deeper, and I find myself constantly going: "WTF?"
With that eye opening, I started noticing a bit more here, and a bit more there. The first thing that went was I quit the political groups. I was enraged (something that had not ever happened) when I found a city council person had eliminated $225k from the budget ear marked for child care for homeless children while the parents looked for housing, did paperwork, looked for jobs. Just...gone. Our meeting to beg for the funds was met with disdain, nothing was resolved, and we asked for another meeting. The council person said it would have to wait 12 weeks. We said we don't have 12 weeks, this is a need RIGHT NOW. He said "too bad, I won't be here."
Found that where he was going to be was in Africa. He and his entourage/staff were taking three months to travel around Africa and study black men in government. I could literally feel the blood pounding in my head, my heart beating triple time, and just filled with rage. This MF had scratched out childcare for homeless children, his scratch out, his...to fund his trip for him and his homies (and his entire family btw) to take a three month vacation under the guise of studying black men in government, in several countries that had zero to do with being a city council man.
I went to the press. I went to the news.
And it got buried.
And our kids, the kids I advocated so hard for, went without. At the end of that 12 weeks, I was a different person, and I had to leave the watch dogging, the political groups, all of it. I couldn't look the parents in the eyes knowing what happened to that money without wanting to scream, and I left the pro bono work and advocacy.
I left all of it.
Then the 2016 election started up. I didn't care, I was removed from politics. I listened to all of them, thought they were a joke, seriously. It was a sad state that these were the best candidates that America had to offer to lead our country. Trump was non contender, just there to stir the shit up. Bernie was a straight joke.
But HRC? Her I learned to hate with a bone deep hatred. I had never felt so strongly against a candidate. Sitting at dinner one night we discussed what shit the country would be in if she happened to be elected. There was nothing good, in a room of almost 20 people. NOTHING good. Someone finally said: "Someone would have to kill her. She's a nightmare and it just can't happen."
But none of the other options were any good either. No one really wanted Trump. He'd never had a political office, he was arrogant, unsophisticated, crude, and a loud mouth. Typical New Yorker lol. No one at all wanted Bernie except a few scraggly college freshmen with idealism and rainbow hair.
Then Trump got the nomination and it got dark. What.the.fuck.
I know that the only reason I voted for him was the thought of HRC was horrific. Absolutely horrific. It wasn't much better, a slender margin, to think of Trump but that was kind of a joke too. What was he doing with the nomination...seriously? But, it wasn't a vote FOR Trump, as against her.
Since then, I've definitely gone downhill. I feel ugly many days. I have thoughts I've never experienced in my life.
And I just came to a realization the other day.
We are in a Civil War. It is not the North and the South. It's the right vs the left. Except most of us, we are straight in the middle. We are standing here watching people demanding our rights be removed from us, as Americans, and it is more than shocking. We are watching violence from masked people tearing innocent people apart everywhere they go. We are watching them accuse everyone of vile and unspeakable things.
It's getting scary to go outside. You could be secretly filmed and find yourself the victim of a viral attack that is not true. You could be surreptiously attacked from any direction by people in masks and bandanas, and you're just walking to the store. You are watching illegals have more rights than Americans, guns being removed, freedom of speech being removed. Our Bill of Rights gives us the right to "peacefull assembly" not violence and shutting down roadways and attacking people. We see them using this as media supported events.We see our cities looking like third world countries, with third world diseases appearing, the plague and typhus. We see deaths from diseases that were eradicated until anti vaxxers erupted. We see a girl who just didn't want to go to school become a Nobel Prize nominee.
We are all standing here looking at each other and going: "WTF happened?" It's not about Trump. He's just the excuse.
America has gone insane.
And I do judge them. They make no sense.