Happy Anniversary

It has been quite the year.  From the Women’s March in January, the Resist March in June, to the #MeToo Survivors’ March in November, we continue to drive the conversation of the “resistance” forward and shed light on important issues and movements that have taken over the American zeitgeist since the early stages of 2016 Presidential election until now.  While many of the actions to come out of the Trump administration have forced both myself and many others, to grow as both people and activists, there is still one thing that I cannot get over: my non-existent relationship with my Aunt and Uncle (who are also my godparents).

Much like I promised on that fateful day where we finally had it out, I swore I would never speak to them again until I received an apology.  Now, while you may be assuming that the apology I want is a result of their voting for then-candidate Trump, I must say nothing could be further from the truth.  Although I do understand that people have lost and ended numerous relationships with family members, friends, partners, or lovers as a result of a person’s private voting booth decision, I am not in that camp. 

Yes, I’m sure I have retweeted or posted stuff that said: “defriend me if you actually voted for this man,” or something of that nature, I can assure you that the feud I am having with my Aunt and my Uncle is not a result of their decision to vote for President Trump (no matter how much it bothers me).  The real reason for our fight stems back to an article I shared on Facebook from the South Florida newspaper the Sun Sentinel titled: “Voter anger over Trump’s election goes deeper than Clinton’s loss.”  The only addition to the long quote that I pulled from the article was: “This pretty much sums up ALL of my feelings regarding friends/family that voter for Trump.”  While the fight would soon consume our family, the facts, much like with the 2016 Election, quickly got away from everyone and were itself a parody that even I couldn’t have made up. 

I was walking back into work at my old job at West Hollywood City Hall when I noticed that my Aunt Mary Lou, who, I had spent most of my time with growing up as most of my mother’s other family lived in Florida, commented on the aid Facebook post.  Her comment was as follows:

SMXLL

I want to mention that I had not spoken to or talked with my Aunt and Uncle (whom I know we're always going to vote for Trump) about the election.  I knew we did not see eye-to-eye on it and it would only cause discord.  For those of you that know you, know that this almost seems like an anomaly.  I am not one to hold back and I have no problem telling people how I feel.  However, when it came to my Aunt and Uncle, it wasn’t worth the strife that would come up as a result of me commenting on her posts on her Facebook page (most of which were made up of fake news stories that Russians used to target vulnerable people in swing states like Wisconsin but I digress).  I even would tell my sisters, who are much better people than I could ever hope to be, that she has a right to say whatever she wants on her own personal Facebook page and not to worry as I was almost positive, much like everyone else, that Hillary Clinton would win. 

While I do not intend to rehash the devastation the 2016 election had and continues to have over myself (you can more about that here), all I will say is that I continued to not engage with her or her posts because I was hurting.  However, it was in that moment when I got the notification that she had commented on the article I shared that all bets were off.

What followed was a long, drawn-out, nasty fight online (where most fights seem to occur these days).  I will be the first to say that I too am guilty of saying mean things; however, they were a direct result of a comment made by my Aunt’s sister Nancy that I said such things:

SMXLL

 

What really made me mad wasn’t that they were attacking me online after I had never said a thing to them (don’t get me wrong, this hurt) but the sheer fact that they were equating my sharing the article as me critiquing them on who they voted for. 

I want to be really clear: I never told them who to vote for because I never spoke to them until after the election.  I agree with Nancy that as an American citizen she has the freedom to vote for whomever she wants.  To make matters worse, my Aunt, and subsequently her sister, much like the fake news that is now part of our daily vernacular, thought that the article that I shared was actually written by me.  They were too busy to actually read the article and see that, although I wish I had written it, was a letter to the editor of the Sun Sentinel. 

Now, do not get me wrong, I clapped back to Nancy’s comment.  It has since been edited as a result of constant pleas from family members to not make private family business public but I refuse to take down the post or the subsequent comments down.  While I thought the post was old news after a few days of no activity, it wasn’t until I was walking around Disneyland, you know, the “happiest place on the planet,” and felt my phone buzzing.  Aunt Mary Lou had commented:

SMXLL\

Although I won’t go further into the details of the back-and-forth, all of this sums down to the fact that I no longer speak to my Aunt (and subsequently my Uncle) because I was attacked, online by both her and her sister.  Don’t get me wrong; I’m not happy they voted for Trump.  However, what makes them different from my other family members that also voted for Trump is, they did not attack me on my personal Facebook page. 

I’m mad.  I’m upset.  I’m still very hurt.  I’m not happy that two people that watched me grow up, supported me, and loved me choose to go this route.  However, I am, if anything, a man of my word.  When I said, that I would never, ever, speak to them again until I got an apology, I meant it; and I’m still waiting. 

I was recently asked: why don’t you just give up?  My answer: because I still believe in them.  I still know, that although they voted for the vilest human being, I still love them and hope that one day they will see the light.  This past election has destroyed so much, but I refuse to let it destroy the one thing about me that I believe in the most: love.  I will continue to “do all the good I can, for all the people I can, in all the ways I can, as long as ever I can” no matter what.

It’s their move, and it begins with I’m and ends with sorry. 

*This post was originally published on the Engaged Gaze

A Letter to those I’ve Lost

Dear [Insert Name Here],

Something died on November 8, 2016, and I do not think I’ll ever be able to get it back. I sat there, walking back to my house, in disbelief and utter shock and scared for the next 4-years of my life.

For weeks leading up to the election, I had found myself praying in the copy room at my work almost daily. I would sit there, silent and alone, having just read some misleading article or alt-right post from a family member that called Hillary Clinton the devil, and wonder: when did everything go so off the rails?

Although we’ll spend years trying to figure the answer to my above question out, for me, it is a question I have been asking myself ever since election night and specifically knowing how certain members of my family would, and ultimately did, vote.  

I’ve always known that I had Republican family members (don’t we all?). However, what made this so troubling is that the election of Donald Trump was not just a normal Republican that they were voting for. This was the election of a man who would not only go after my rights as a citizen but also the rights of my female family members, friends, and a large-majority of people in my life that have always and were certain to become the main targets for further bigotry, hatred, and violence. I thought, at least for a second, that when they entered the voting booth, this would be in the back of their mind. They’d sit there, before selecting their nominee, and think about how Donald Trump would ultimately hurt a member of their family, directly and indirectly; boy, was I wrong.

I expressed my concern to my sisters; having told them I was deeply troubled by certain members of my family having voted for Donald Trump having known and supported me as an openly gay man my whole life. How could someone that proclaims to love me, vote for a Presidential ticket where the Vice-President had advocated for electrocution of LGBT people to “correct” them and cure their homosexuality?

From that simple conversation, life in my family only got more complicated and much more contentious. If you know me, I’m not one to not directly engage with those that disagree with me. However, in this case, I never directly engaged any of my Republican family members out of the respect and sheer ability to see what would (and did) happen if I did. The situation only seemed to get worse. I shared an op-ed that I did not write stating that it “pretty much summed up how I felt about family and friends that voted for Trump.” The article stated that although I respect your choice to vote for whoever you wish, if you think for a second that I’ll forget that you voted for a racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic demagogue hell-bent on destroying the very fabric of America, then you have another thing coming. Upon sharing this article, my Republican family members confirmed that “we will not be coming together ever again” while members of their extended family proceeded to also viciously attack me.

In the sense of full disclosure, I did fight back and engage with these family and extended family members in a not so cordial way after their bombardment of attacks made it almost impossible for me not to while also casting doubt if I could ever look them in the eyes, let alone ever speak/see them, again. Having fully known what was occurring, I demand and still to this day await an apology for my family members attacking me without provocation. I refuse to speak or see them ever again until they own up to attacking me for my political beliefs, something that I never did to them.

The worst part of this election is that it has completely destroyed my wiliness to further engage with “those people.” I no longer care to make it a top priority of mine to reach out beyond the proverbial political aisle to hear about what they have to say; especially after they shared fake news articles about Hillary Clinton running a child sex-trafficking ring out of a pizza place or the countless other horribly vicious things they said.  

Maybe, our country is doomed after all. Maybe, our country deserves a ruthless dictator who will lie, cheat, and steal his way into the White House and destroy the very lives of those people that ended up putting him there in the process. Maybe, this is the type of President my Republican family members, who all benefit from the Social Security and Medicare programs likely to be on the chopping block in the next 4-years, deserve.

Out of all of these things, the one thing that has kept coming to my mind is G-d. What is he (or she) thinking? I feel like I’m back in one of my Old Testament classes discussing the harsh and cruel G-d that thrust so many horrible things onto their believers. Maybe, the worst part about the election isn’t Donald Trump, but it is the realization that G-d may be dead after all.

Whatever happens, the only thing that I know for sure is that I will never stop fighting. I will never stop fighting the bigotry, the hatred, and lies, the slander, and most importantly the fear that is going to be washing over the communities I care most about throughout these next four (and G-d forbid) or eight years of a Trump Presidency. I will never forget the lies and attacks thrust upon me by family members that I once took pleasure seeing and interacting with. I will never forget the hatred you endorsed with your vote and I will make sure that countless others like myself hold their family members that voted in similar fashions accountable as well.

I vow to never stop fighting and believing that we are stronger together both now and more so in the future. I vow to do all the good I can, for all the people I can, in all the ways I can, as long as I can.

Sincerely,
John Erickson
#AlwaysWithHer

John is a Ph.D. Candidate in American Religious History at Claremont Graduate University and holds an MA in Women’s Studies in Religion; an MA in Applied Women’s Studies; and a BA in English and Women’s Studies.  His areas of focus are women's, gender, and sexuality studies, LGBT history, American religious history, and 20th and 19th-century American women's history.  John is currently the Community Events Technician for the City of West Hollywood where he works on community events related to women, gender, sexuality, and human rights issues.   He is, and will not be over, the outcome of the 2016 Presidential election for a very long time.  

The End is Nigh

When I was a little boy I was terrified that I would live to experience the end of the world.  Whether it was by an asteroid, Y2K, or a zombie plague, I would make myself sick by picturing these horrible things that could befall me and my family.  Although I was a precocious child, the crippling fear that would lurch its way up my stomach and into my head would sometimes make it impossible to sleep at night.  While I like to think I grew out of that phase, I now sit here feeling that way again.  I’m crippled with fear that the end of the world is at hand and there may be nothing we can do to stop it.   How will the world end? No, it isn’t Lucifer himself coming from hell to bring in the end times, it is someone far worse, and his name is Donald Trump.

By the time you’re reading this post, the first Presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump will have occurred and, no matter where you look, the aftermath will haunt us for weeks to come.  We will either be sitting here, coaxing in the sunlight that Clinton has, in proper fashion, just goaded Trump into revealing to the 100 or so million viewers that will have chimed in to viewing how completely dangerous he truly is, or will we be scurrying to uncover decade old bunkers that were used during the 1950s and the Cold War to take shelter from the fallout to come should, Donald Trump become the next President of the United States.

However, as I sit here and write this, I wonder what levels of prognosticating can I accurately do?  I predict Trump will make sexist remarks, act totally unhinged when fact-checked by either Clinton or the (Republican) moderator Lester Holt and, most likely, use the phrase “believe me” more than a Second Great Awakening circuit preacher.  Or, will he be muzzled, refrained, and attempt to, in his own particular fashion, act Presidential.  To be honest, I do not know which version of Trump scares me more; the unhinged or the hinged Trump.

I’ve written about Clinton on this blog before, during her primary battle with Senator Bernie Sanders.  I have never seen so many comments, masked with faint hints at sexism, coming from people that I not only respect but also thought would see the ultimate test that she (or Bernie) would have to face: Donald Trump.  Comment after comment called into question many of her policies that, should she had been born a man, would have made her qualified, tough or a skilled General not afraid to make the difficult decisions. 

Having read her book, Hard Choices, I can honestly say that I do not think I have ever studied or investigated a candidate that was more qualified to serve as President; and when the current President backs that up, you have to begin to question what your real motives are for not voting for Clinton, and potentially giving your vote (which equates an endorsement) to a third party candidate or worse, simply not voting at all.   Countless times I have had to discuss that this election, although it really comes down to good versus evil, is the most important election that you or myself will vote in (yes, I know, some of you reading this see no difference between Trump and Clinton) for the next twenty or so years.  Ask yourself: do you really know what you’ll be losing if Trump is elected? 

For me, this all boils down to one thing: my nieces and nephews.  I worry about them constantly.  I worry about what they watch on TV, what they’ll read for the next 8 years, or whom they will look up to or what horrible things bullies may one day say to them.  While I was home in Wisconsin this past weekend, I sat down to have a quick bite to eat at one of my favorite establishments.  I opened my book and began reading to only overhear a man and a woman talking about Clinton and Trump and how they were completely torn.  I turned around, apologized for intruding into their conversation and began to speak to them about why they felt they couldn’t vote for Clinton and what it was about Trump that put them on the edge as well.  Their answers were about character and what they really wanted their grandchildren to go up experiencing.  I quickly went over the list of the things Trump had said not only about women but also about people with disabilities and, people in general and asked: Is that the person you want your grandchildren growing up and seeing as the President?  A man that calls women bimbos, mocks a person with a disability in front of thousands of people, and frequently calls for violence against non-white individuals?  I shared with them that, for me, it was about my two nieces (and my two nephews) but more so my nieces, growing up during their formative years and seeing a woman holding the highest office in the land.  Yes, she isn’t just any woman but, a woman in my opinion who is more qualified that anyone ever to hold the office of the Presidency.  This race is about the future that they grow up in and one where I hope people will begin to more readily recognize the inherent sexism, racism, homophobia, etc. rather than encourage it from the oval office.  

Before you cast your vote, please make sure you think about the future; please make sure you think about the boys and girls that will grow up in a world with President Trump versus President Clinton.  Think about that little boy, petrified, standing here now as a grown man worried about the end of the world not because his candidate could lose, but because the person that could win, has a very good chance and ushering in the end times as we know it and ending any type of progress that has occurred in the past 8-years.  

Whatever you do, make sure you vote.  Make sure you sit there and think not only about yourself but also the U.S. Supreme Court, women’s rights, LGBT rights, communities of color, education, or the countless other topics that will be greatly impacted by the outcome of the November 8^th election.  If you do anything, think about the world we have now and the world you want to be in 4 to 8 years from now and ask yourself: is a protest or no vote really worth the bleak world we may get as a result of it?

If you’re on the fence, please reach out to me; let me know what your issues are and we can speak about it in the hopes of coming to an understanding of what the future could hold for all of us.  I can be reached via email at - ericksonjohn1985@gmail.com or on Twitter @JErickson85.

No matter what you do, make sure you vote on November 8.  It will be the most important thing you do not only on that day but also for years to come. 

John Erickson is a Ph.D. Candidate in American Religious History at Claremont Graduate University. He holds an MA in Women’s Studies in Religion; an MA in Applied Women’s Studies; and a BA in Women’s Literature and Women’s Studies. He is a Permanent Contributor to the blog Feminism and Religion, a Non-Fiction Reviewer for Lambda Literary, the leader in LGBT reviews, author interviews, opinions and news since 1989 and the Co-Chair of the Queer Studies in Religion section of the American Academy of Religion's Western Region, the only regional section of the American Academy of Religion that is dedicated to the exploration of queer studies in religion and other relevant fields in the nation. He is currently the President of the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh's LGBTQA+ Alumni Association, the Vice- Chair of Public Relation and Social Media for the Stonewall Democratic Club, and the Non-Profit and Governmental Liaison for the Hollywood Chapter of NOW (National Organization for Women). When he is not working on his dissertation, he can be found at West Hollywood City Hall where he is the Community Events Technician and works on policies and special events relating to women, gender, sexuality, and human rights issues that are sponsored or co-sponsored by the City of West Hollywood. He is the author of the blog From Wisconsin, with Love and can be followed on Twitter@JErickson85