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| Photo copyright Charley Freiberg |
I made a vow the day after the election.
As those of you who read my last post know, I never wanted
to write about politics, but I did it once, and in it I said we need to stand
up to the evil acts that this election is making certain people feel have been
legitimized. I said we need to make sure the people doing evil know that we see what they’re doing, and say, loudly
and clearly, that it’s not all right.
I’m a fairly insulated person – not often actually out in
public, and the folks who are lying on my table waiting for acupuncture are not
likely to be spouting nastiness where I can hear it – after all, they’re very
aware of who’s actually in charge of the very sharp needles, as my acupuncture
teacher used to say. But they tell me stories from their lives, from the lives
of people they know.
As well as being someone who regularly and enthusiastically
stabs total strangers with sharp objects, and sometimes sets them on fire or
gives them alien-looking cupping hickies, I’m a writer. My way of seeing and saying is mostly going to be through the written word. This post,
and the articles and letters to everyone and their brother that I will write,
are going to be the way I fulfill my vow to get in people’s faces when truth
needs to be told, and when evil can’t be left not commented upon.
In my last post, I said I’d heard from two people who had
experienced election-results evil. In the last four days, I’ve heard three more
stories. That’s about a 400% increase over similar stories I’ve heard in the
past ten years – not a good sign of
things to come. I want to share these
stories with you, and urge you to share them with others. If you want me to
send you printed copies – I have no idea if one can print something from a blog
– email me, and I’ll be happy to send a copy by email so you can share. And
please, give everyone my blog address, and encourage them to read and pass it
on.
Two of the stories I heard were about children. These stories
are local stories, from Concord, Lebanon, Claremont – not some far-off place
where we expect weird and uncomfortable stuff to happen. And these stories are
about people being nasty to other people in person, not on paper, not in the
electronic world, which can be bad enough. These
stories are about people looming over other people, pushing them, and screaming
into their faces. These stories – if they happened to any of us – would scare
us out of our wits.
The first story is about a 16-year-old transgender person,
who was born, as it happens, an American citizen – though that shouldn’t matter
– but whose skin is darker than lily-white, as this teen takes after a parent
who is of Latin extraction. This kid has lived and gone to school in the same
place for always. The students who attacked were - had been - long-time friends;
and to whom this teen painfully, and believed successfully, came out, a couple
of years ago.
But the day after the election, this kid was surrounded by
fellow students, who got too close, and spoke with hard voices: “Now you have
to go away. You can’t be transgender anymore. It’s illegal. And we don’t want
you.”
I asked the student’s mom, from whom I heard the story: Did
you call the principal? And she said, “No; what if the principal feels the same
way?” and I said, “Then you call the superintendent of schools.” And she said,
“And what if the superintendent --- they don’t like transgender people. We have to wait and see; maybe it’ll calm
down. But my kid – my kid is crying, and scared.”
The second story is about a brave 10-year-old, of
Puerto-Rican extraction, whose family comes from NYC. This branch of the family
has lived in NH for the child’s entire life. His mom told me this story:
The day after the election, her son found a group of big
kids, older kids, in the schoolyard surrounding a little 5-year-old girl; an
immigrant family’s child. They were pushing her, and wouldn’t let her go, and
shouted at her: You don’t belong here. Now we have a new president, you have to
go back to your own country. We don’t want you.
The brave 10-year-old, who, his mom told me, is a fairly
rugged kid, pushed his way into the circle and stood in front of the little
girl, protecting her until a teacher got there and broke up the incident. His
mom said he never said anything about it to her; she found out when, that
night, she got calls from teachers, the school principal, and the parents of
the little child he’d protected, thanking her for raising such a good son,
praising him for his courage and willingness to act. When she asked him about
it, her son said, “She was so little, Mom. She was so scared. They shouldn’t
have been doing that.”
That kid’s going to get an extra-special Christmas present
this year, Santa told me.
The last two stories are really one story; both are about a
NH government employee, who has apparently decided the election has given him
free reign to loudly declaim his scary, evil tendencies. The person who told me
this story explained that this government employee wields power over the people
he was shouting at– they need something from him and can’t get it elsewhere, so
they’re afraid to say anything about it or make a complaint. The story is about
an everyday court-related program employee, not an immigration authority.
The woman who told me the story was the direct victim of the
first attack, and was part of a group who experienced the second. In the first
instance, when the woman – who is a beautiful South American woman, a
naturalized citizen who has lived in the States – and our state – for nearly 20
years, first attempted to speak to this government employee, he got into her
face and shouted: “I SPEAK ENGLISH. YOU UNDERSTAND? WE SPEAK ENGLISH HERE. DON’T
TALK IF YOU DON’T SPEAK ENGLISH!”
The woman telling me the story, by the way, speaks beautiful
English, with an accent.
The second time she encountered this boor he was shouting at
a group that included a mix of people. “NOW WE HAVE TRUMP, THINGS ARE GOING TO
CHANGE. IT’S GOING TO BE GREAT – WE [indicating himself, so apparently
referring to government employees] ARE ALL GOING TO BE ARMED, SO WE CAN PROTECT
OURSELVES [the circumstance and accompanying gesture indicated that the
protection was going to be from the motley group requiring this boor’s help in
a government program]. WE’LL BE CARRYING GUNS. IT’S GONNA BE A NEW GAME.”
This same woman is having a very, very bad week. She also
received a phone call from the lawyer who is helping her bring her (gay)
fiancée to the US. “We have to do this quickly, now the election’s over, we may
not be able to do it at all if we don’t hurry,” the lawyer told her. “By the
way, our fee for this has just doubled.”
You can email me at: taichideb@tds.net. Please don’t let evil pass unremarked.
By Debra Marshall.
Written only for the blog: herondragonwrites.blogspot.com
I am one Witness.
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