Where to begin

I have not written anything since the election happened on Tuesday November 8.  I am still in shock.  I have stated before and I will say again. Donald Trump and his followers SCARE me.  I don't think people get it.  This is a man who said he has never HEARD of the KKK, who encouraged his followers to beat up people who disagreed with them and from all accounts, asked why we couldn't just USE the Nukes.

What is WORSE to me is that I am seeing all kinds of backlash toward me form BOTH sides.   For the Record, not all white people voted for Trump and when I woke up in a world where he had been chosen, my fears about him became real.  I am afraid for women who will have LESS access to adequate reproductive health care and will be subjected to MORE harassment as the Republican leader believes that we should be"grabbed by the pussy" to keep us in line.   I am afraid for the poor living on the poverty line as taxes rise in order to balance a budget that most experts say will send us into another Recession.  I am afraid for those who will lose their health care coverage ( it appears he lied to them about repealing it- so I have SOME hope)  I am afraid for my LGBT friends, as the Republican Platform actually singled them out by stating that they wanted to appoint a Supreme Court Justice who would overturn the Marriage Equality Act.  THEY WANT TO TAKE AWAY RIGHTS, They must believe that LGBT people are less deserving of basic AMERICAN rights.

I am wearing a safety pin on my necklace in a small act of comfort and protest.  YES, I am prepared to help someone in distress.  I am a 58 year old white female, but I will do what I can.  HOWEVER I am taking heat from people of color who are mocking me.  One person claimed the distress of "white folks" is fake and we can't know real distress unless we are people of color.  She went on to say that  we will never understand what it is like to be a person of color.   I will never experience  the things that people of color do every day because of the color of their skin, but to assume that I do not have compassion simply because of  the color of my skin is just as wrong, isn't it?  No, I can never really know how you feel, but can you ever truly know how I feel?  You take one look at my pale skin and make a snap judgement about me.  Isn't this the thing you complain that I do?  I can not experience what you are feeling, but you can help me to understand .  Those of us feeling pain for this country must unite against a common problem, not splinter further because of it.

Mostly, I am tired but trying to find a glimmer of hope in all of this.  The day after the election, I was  talking to a young man in this twenties.  We consoled each other and I told him "we worked for change and we did it once, we can do it again, but we are counting on YOUR generation to stand with us in the fire"  He smiled and said that he was sure his generation would step up and that he was considering getting much more involved in politics because of this.  It gave me a bit of hope for our future, that seeing this victory is ready and willing to work for our own.