I'm teetering between outreach and outrage right now.
I've been reading and thinking a lot about "what do we do now." My Day after post had started out leaning even more toward the angry side, but ended up a little closer to something conciliatory, an attempt to say, "try to imagine how we feel." And then the thought: well, I guess I owe it to others to find out how they feel.
As a lot of people have been asking: how do we start the dialog? What is there for people on opposite sides of the Trump Divide to talk about? I'm not looking for kumbaya, but for a more practical idea of how can we separate out the real (read: overt, conscious) racists — who I don't believe are worth engaging with — and talk with thoughtful, reasonable people about issues where we may have common ground, and also about the very fraught and central topic of unconscious or adjacent racism (insert also: sexism, xenophobia, Islamophobia, etc.).
But then I started getting angry again.
It's taken less than 72 hours to get really tired of pleas to come together and unite behind the Will Of The (Electoral College) People and give the man a chance and don't be a sore loser.
Sorry; this is not the normal, "My side didn't win so I'm unhappy" situation; this is, "My side is being targeted by policies — along with explicit appeals to hatred — that will if enacted lead to violence, deportation, harassment, torture and a climate of fear against specifically targeted minority populations because of absolutely nothing more than their skin color, religion, sexual orientation or gender identity."
So no, don't tell me that 2016 is the flip side of 2008. You may not have liked President Obama's policies, but they didn't (no matter what you may have heard) lead logically to internment camps and extrajudicial violence. No, we can't really all get along. No, we won't calm down and give the president elect the benefit of the doubt. In word and deed, he hasn't earned it. In fact, he's done the opposite.
So no, not today.
Tomorrow? Ultimately, common ground is the only constructive answer. Fighting hate with hate seems a little counterproductive. But when the day comes, where will the line be drawn? What level of racism/sexism/xenophobia/etc. — or more specifically, what level of acceptance of or lack of concern about or blindness to racism/sexism/xenophobia/etc. — is beyond outreach? The simple, right and obvious answer is zero tolerance.
But the simple, right and obvious answer is also: you can't expect someone to shed vestiges of racism if they can't even see it in the first place. (Remember, I'm a straight white guy; I still have no idea how much I don't know and can't see.) So it's my obligation to engage, illuminate and provide a space for growth and change.
I know a lot of people who will say that second answer is bullshit; you can't have been even semiconscious during the Trump campaign and not had all of its isms made blindingly clear — it shouldn't take any more cajoling for someone to decide which side they're on. And that is true.
And yet. In the messy real world, with very few absolutes, I think dialog is necessary. Maybe I'm trying to be too empathetic, or I'm more kumbaya than I like to admit. Maybe I'm a little concerned that my liberal bubble is too small. Maybe it's just the instinctive peacemaker and inveterate conflict-avoider in me talking. For any and all reasons, in my still-conflicted emotional state, while I'm sorting through reams of contradictory ideas and generating clashing, synapse-frying impulses, I'm not ready to close any door.
But who sets the terms? Who should be bending over backwards (or forwards) to make it happen? Do we need a pinky swear? "I promise to acknowledge the economic hardships of the white working class if you recognize that being endorsed by the KKK might make African Americans a little nervous about your guy?"
That's actually a semi-serious question. When I'm ready — feeling less angry and brittle — it's the kind of question that has to be put on the table. And I'll need to be prepared for questions from the other side of the table that bring me up short, and expose my own prejudices and blind spots. It may take a series of uncomfortable Q&A sessions to find common ground — or, maybe, find out that there can't be common ground with some people I now think of as friends.
None of that can come ahead of protecting the vulnerable, and ensuring civil rights, and fighting for the ideals this country has always been chasing. But the day will come, even as these other battles continue. And at least until then, I'm pretty sure I'll keep walking the line between outrage and outreach.