“I have never felt so brown in my life.” This is all I’ve been thinking on repeat.
The last week has been, well, tumultuous to say the least. Last Tuesday, when I saw that Donald Trump was going to win the election I burst into tears. I cried so hard I heaved and tears and snot mingled on my hot face. My husband hugged me while I cried into his lap. On Wednesday, I woke to swollen eyelids that I lined with dark black eyeliner, but the only thing it did was highlight how much I had mourned the night before.
Because, a large portion of the American people are mourning.
Many people are posting saying “Clinton supporters are being dramatic”. But, this wasn’t just any other election. If you believe this, you are either lying to yourself, uninformed, or in denial. This is not any other election and Clinton supporters are not being sore losers. Did I think Clinton would have made a great president? No. I think she would have been good. Bernie would have been better.
But, this isn’t about whose candidate won. This about humanity. I cried Tuesday night because humanity lost last week. Since his election into office, all minorities have been a target of unabashed racism. Women have been cat called because a recently elected leader of the free world got away with talking and treating women like dirt. Who’s going to stop a man on the street?
If you voted for a racist, but say you are not racist, you are lying. You are condoning the marginalization of minorities, women, and LGBTQ communities. You voted for a man who has created a crazed mania in all racist, white supremacist, and worse, he’s given them a platform which allows social acceptability for calling someone a spik, a nigger, or a fag. Children are chanting “You’re gonna be deported” to little Latino children or telling African Americans “They should be picking cotton.” These children are our future. These children are being taught to hate.
Because, not since before the civil rights movement has this language been so brashly thrown in our faces.
Even in El Paso, a place I’d hoped would be a brown bubble of safety, has been affected. Long-time news anchor Estella Casas, a woman who appears in stories from my childhood, arrived at work Wednesday to find voicemails from a man saying he was glad she was going to be deported. Estella Casas is a college educated American born Latina. But, that isn’t the point, is it?
Because all they see is brown.
So, don’t laugh at my tears. Don’t laugh at people around you mourning. They aren’t just mourning a presidential election. They are mourning an ugliness that has been unleashed and voters let it happen. Does your 2nd Amendment right outweigh human decency? Do your Christian beliefs about abortion and unborn babies outweigh a Muslim woman being attacked and set on fire in a New York City street? Does being able to look down on a group of people because of the color of their skin make you feel better about yourself? Because, if you answered yes to any of these questions, you are the problem.
Because the truth is, the uneducated masses voted this man into office.
Finally, I hate the suspicion I now have of people around me. A woman I worked with when I was in college posted, “America has spoken” after the election. Her page had a photo of a Trump/Pence sign with its “Make America Great Again” slogan. I looked at her picture, blond haired and blue eyed, and wondered how she’d really felt about me and my brown skin. Moreover, I looked at the Gomez’s and Trujillo’s and the Dominguez’s on my friend list and wondered if they’d even bothered to think outside themselves. Because if any of them attended a Trump rally in West Virginia they probably would have been spat on and escorted out. I have to ask, do you hate your brown skin? Because, how else can you excuse white nationalists seeing an advocate in Steve Bannon’s appointment to the White House?
Have you failed humanity?
I need to believe that things will get better. I need to believe that this country and its people have not time warped back to the 1950’s. I need to believe that there are good in people. I need to believe that there will be more people willing to look past the color of my skin to like or dislike me for my personality and not for its brown shade. I need to believe that the intelligent people will outweigh those who choose to remain ignorant and uninformed about policies and believe 9-month abortions exist. I need to believe that somewhere inside those people chanting, “Make America White Again” they are saying that out of anger because America was never white, and they feel displaced.
Because, I need to believe…in something good.
Because, I need to believe…in something good.
Because, I need to believe…in something good.
Because, I need to believe…in something good.
Because, I need to believe…in something good.
Yasmin Ramirez stays active in the literary community and writes And Then, a weekly blog. Her work is featured in: HUIZACHE, Hispanic Culture Review, and Cream City Review, among others. She received her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Texas at El Paso. Currently, she is an Associate English Professor at El Paso Community College. She is completing her first book of creative nonfiction titled, Por Un Amor and writing a Young Adult series for Epic Press slated for release Summer 2017. Visit Yasmin’s website to read more about her and links to her work. www.yasminramirez.com
Featured Image Credit: By nathanmac87 [CC BY 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons
