SAVE THE DATE: January 20, 2018, Women’s March in Chicago
My friends will find it hard to believe but, yes, I swear now, well sometimes. Up until the 2016 presidential election I had probably spoken a swear word less than five times in my four-plus decades of existence. Imagine my surprise when the first victim of my new-found vocabulary was my own son…
It never seemed a natural thing for me. The words didn’t come to mind. I have a naturally more positive and optimistic nature that staved off harsh words, and perhaps also an old-fashioned sense that ladies do not swear.
But I now think the real reason I did not swear all that time was because I was never angry enough, or cynical enough, or desperate enough to reach for the words, finding that all others failed me. As a teen I remember when my mom said “you have to be f**ked before you can say the word.” I knew what she meant from the context of her story. She did not mean intercourse she meant when you are screwed, betrayed, ill-used.
That’s how I felt in the days following November 8, 2016. Betrayed…not by lying, cheating, sexually harassing, corrupt, Trump. Betrayed by my fellow countrymen who fell victim to his con. Desperate…to be trapped in a boat with people who were either greedy, racist, reckless for change, fearful, ignorant, gullible, or some toxic combination of any of the above.
I knew that life just got harder. Suddenly I was answering to my kids about local vandalism involving swastikas, fending off their requests to move to Canada and, worst of all, responding to one of their suggestions that they “pretend not to be Jewish” for safety’s sake.
So when I arrived at home on a Friday night, a few weeks into December 2016, with a headache and a smile painted on my face for their sake, I found it hard to withstand the banal bickering over what movie to watch. One kid was a hold out and after 30 minutes of him being uncooperative I finally lost it and said in dead pan fashion (because I was too tired to yell, I suppose), “I don’t f’ing care what you want to watch. I simply want escapist entertainment, any f’ing movie will do, because I had an f’ing hard week, and f’ing Trump was elected president, and I’m f’ing going upstairs to crawl into bed.” A few minutes later I could hear my husband enter the house, “Where’s mom?’, “She’s upstairs…in bed” one answered, and another blurted out, “She swore at us, Dad!”. My husband’s voice rose to a yell, “She SWORE at you?!!”, “Well then you get upstairs right now and apologize to her!!” (God bless him).
So liberating in that moment and so handy for some months to come when once again other words would escape me or feel inadequate. But here’s the thing. Once you go so low, there is no lower. (Except for violence). And sometimes I feel like our American dialogue keeps inventing new lows. Candidate Trump gained support by swearing. We thought we hit rock-bottom when Scaramucci was cursing up a storm in the White House and was dismissed. But cursing has become and remained a norm in the Trump White House and today Trump combined his foul mouth with his racist disdain for black or brown immigrants: “Why are we having all these people from s***hole countries come here?” (referring to Haiti and African nations)….”why don’t we bring more people from countries like Norway?”
Ignoring the geopolitical implications of pissing off African countries–where China is vying for a global monopoly on precious metals, where fighting ISIS requires cooperation from African countries, where people are likely more upright and worthy than our very own president–how can we ignore the ongoing racism and cruelty of this President?
==>Here is a thoughtful question by one pundit…What was your response to Trump’s S***holes” comment? Will we be dragged into the gravitational force of going lower and lower until physical violence is the only retort? Or can we yet save ourselves?
==>And here is something you can do to respond as an American: Join me on Saturday, January 20 for the Women’s March in Chicago or in other cities (enter your zip code) that weekend. Bring your friends, spouses, family. Let us stand up for what is good and decent about our country. Bring your body, and your best (and worst) words in defense of what America stands for.
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