On November 7th, 2018, I guzzled a glass of champagne, spilling more than a spoonful down the front of my Stacey Abrams for Governor t-shirt. I then logged into Facebook and wrote an immortal status. It read: It’s an exciting time for women. Especially LGBTQIA+ women and BIPOC women. HEAR US ROAR!
I was elated to celebrate the first Muslim congresswoman, Ilhan Omar, the first Native American congresswoman, Debra Haaland, the two first Latina congresswomen from Texas, Veronica Escobar and Sylvia Garcia, and the youngest congresswoman in history, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Equally, I was excited to celebrate all the democratic women who achieved glass-shattering feats during the election; it was an exceptional moment in democracy, liberalism, and women’s history. And let’s be honest, it was a little ray of hope during Trump’s radical reign.
Two years on and November 7th has once again rolled around. However, this election day is anything but exciting. It’s nauseatingly tense, frightening, and completely appalling. American democracy hangs in tatters from a leaning flagpole kicked loose by red radicals, while the Statue of Liberty stares on, silently weeping at the traitorous affair. Afar, in the opaque distance, the American Bald Eagle has plucked its feathers, threatening to become flightless.
This is what America has come to. With the blood-red Republican radicals and Trump loyalists tearing this country apart with choleric savagery, including an assault on women’s reproductive rights, intentions of abolishing social security and Medicare, voter suppression, and their brazen agenda to nourish white supremacy, it’s hard not to remember those school days when teachers misled us into thinking that Nazism was Germany’s problem. And since Hitler and his agents are all dead, we were told there was nothing left to fear.
Back then, it wouldn’t have been conceivable to imagine that the future promised – a world supposedly better than any other time before, where countries, such as America, would pride themselves on advancement – would decline at an accelerated rate. Instead, we’re living in a time where America is blatantly dismissive of environmentalism, all whilst the billionaires are busy making exit plans to congregate on Mars before the earth expires.
We’re living in a country where Republicans have introduced 137 pieces of legislation that limit what teachers are allowed to teach. You guessed it, those bleeding, bloody, blithering red radicals are attempting to eliminate studies that incorporate race, gender, sexual orientation, and anything that opposes Christian supremacy. As someone who attended Catholic school for six years, I know a thing or two about theology. That would be because my school – although a “Christian school” – was mandated to teach all world religions, atheism, and agnosticism at the GCSE level. It was essential learning if you wanted to graduate. So no, I’m not attacking religious studies, as long as we’re exposing our children to all faiths and non-faiths equally, meaning that children should independently choose their doctrines without bias or institutionalized pressure.
Christian supremacy is a terrifying thing. Americanized Christianity offers an alternative Jesus, which is simultaneously hilarious and harrowing. The Republican Jesus is usually several shades too white, carries an AK 47, and is often depicted with Trump’s face. Understandably, he’s also a non-compassionate and inhumane arsehole, which begs the question, how did that even happen? What happened to the scriptures whereby Jesus – the real Messiah - was an all-embracing, loving, empathetic, and forgiving liberalist, whose teachings opposed classism, fascism, and all that renders humans unequal? And what of the scriptures about not worshipping false idols? Those scriptures must be stuck at the border and denied entry. In short, the portrait of Americanized Christianity, with a gun-swinging Trump-Jesus, is the Republican’s agenda to teach students – especially adolescent girls – oppression in the guise of religious principles. Gross.
That is why today is such a nervous day. The election polls are agonizingly close and there’s predicted to be a submerging red wave. If that happens, America will no longer be called a great nation; a nation that claims to own democracy at its very core. Should America take a seat amongst other fascist nations, such as Russia, China, and North Korea, then I cannot guarantee my safety. Or those I love.
On November 7th, 2018, I wrote, "It's an exciting time for women." In 2022, the same can't be said. It's an unbelievably scary time for women.
“Women endure entire lifetimes of these indignities—in the form of catcalls, groping, assault, oppression. These things injure us. They sap our strength. Some of the cuts are so small they’re barely visible. Others are huge and gaping, leaving scars that never heal. Either way, they accumulate. We carry them everywhere, to and from school and work, at home while raising our children, at our places of worship, anytime we try to advance.”
-Michelle Obama
(Image from dreamstime.com)
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