I breathed a sigh of relief and pumped my fists in the air when Barack Obama was reelected last week. I allowed myself a moment of celebration and nod of gratitude for all the hours volunteers spent toiling for a cause and a candidate they believe in.
In sharp contrast, most of my Romney supporting friends admitted to me that they were voting against Obama and cast only a half-hearted vote for Romney. This matters not in outcome, but it does matter in terms of passion and conviction. I tried to wake my sons to tell them the news as they requested, but neither boy budged. It was, after all, well past midnight, and they had been sleeping soundly for hours. My pride, relief, and celebration were extinguished pretty quickly.
For starters, local and state elections kept my home state of North Carolina decidedly in the dark. Secondly, "friends" on Facebook immediately lashed out with racist, hateful rhetoric. I understand feeling disappointed and angry, but there is no (more) room for hate in political discourse. I am a woman of color, the daughter of immigrants, the mother of first generation American sons, and an engaged citizen. Remarks about Obama's color and heritage hit close to home for me, and I am disheartened that this nonsense continues. Drunken Donald Trump certainly doesn't help matters, though he did provide unintentional comic relief.
Politics in America have created an oozing, open wound. Our nation is not just divided, we are ripped apart by the very fibers our forefathers and mothers wove. The wound is raw, and no amount of rhetoric or money will help it heal. The election season wasted an obscene amount of money, thanks to Citizens United, the most disastrous and inaptly named legislation upheld by the Supreme Court. We have Obama as a winner, but half the country still feels angry, deflated, and worse.
Sure, I'm happy my candidate won. It's not a time to gloat. In reality, we all lose if the great divide continues. Let's work together to heal our nation. People are more important than politics.
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Billsfan, I ended up deactivating my Facebook account because of the race-related comments my Romney/Ryan supporting friends were making. (They must have forgotten that I was black or something...) Comments that were as light as, "Why is our president still black?" to comments as harsh as, "I hope this sh*tty n*gger and his family dies and he can take Biden with him." To your face they can be as sweet as pie, but they all of a sudden grow balls behind the computer screen. So much for a post-racist nation...
If your "friends" are making racist comments you need new friends.
Seriously Republicans.....give it a rest. I've seen toddlers get over bad news quicker. You know for a fact that you would have been rubbing it in just as much (or more) if Romney had won. Do any of you remember the Wisconsin recall? Bills, do you have to come and whine about every article written here regarding politics?
I can't imagine having Facebook friends like that, Ilina. Most of my friends are Canadian, so we were all cheering for Obama. The friends I have in the US all lean left, so they were very happy with the result.
Ilinia I didn't realize we had a lot in common with our backgrounds. "the daughter of immigrants, the mother of first generation American sons, and an engaged citizen," I am also an immigrant and the mother of first generation American sons and I am definitely an engaged citizen.
I agree wholeheartedly with your sentiment of the celebration being quickly extinguished. I also had a lot of friends go the route of hateful rhetoric. It got so bad I actually had to block a cousin and it came close with my brother - on a post I made for us to start coming together to heal and work with each other across the lines.
I love how they quickly go to the line that we are calling them racist because they don't agree with Obama. This comment only makes me roll my eyes. I am sure these people aren't blind and they see what is being said, they just don't see it. Which is really sad.
Stay strong hon!!!