Election Voices
(Originally published in Consequence Forum, January 2017)
During the first presidential debate, my unborn baby was the size of a container of yogurt. The books said she could hear my voice. Hillary, in her red blazer, sounded cool and collected. Dignified. I wanted my daughter to hear a strong voice, a kind voice.
By election night my daughter was the size of a papaya. She had eyelashes and fingernails. I went to bed before they called the race, wanting one more night of sleep in a world I understood. I awoke in the dark, feeling violated by a whole nation. I cried as I scrolled through Facebook. I couldn’t turn on the news, couldn’t look at his hateful face. I did not watch the acceptance speech.
I wanted, that morning, to apologize to the woman in red. I felt America had spit in her face. And I thought of my daughter’s face, this mystery baby rolling slowly inside of me, not knowing what world she is straining toward. I curled into myself, wanting to apologize to her as well. To the whole world, in fact, to every nation and animal inside of it, for the devastation I felt certain was coming.
These days, to say words like “devastation” or “violation” in regard to the election is to invite mockery. The world has filled with venom and name-calling, and I get it. Post-election, the left used words like racist and misogynist. Of course, then, the right turned to words like crybaby and whiner; to portray us as weak, sniveling creatures on our knees. Battlegrounds sprung up in workplaces, over holiday dinner tables. Verbal warfare in our newsfeeds, actual rioting on our streets. A nation at war with itself. I’d wanted peace for this child I’d had the gall to create.
But if the post-election months have taught me anything, it’s that strength and kindness are not oppositional forces. They are complementary qualities, both needed in equal balance. Strength without kindness is just a schoolyard bully. Kindness without strength is spineless, a pushover. Neither is acceptable; neither is good enough.
It takes kindness to speak respectfully to someone you viscerally disagree with. And it takes strength to look into a future you find abhorrent and find any kind of hope. More than any disagreeable policies—though I’ll fight them too—it’s this climate of mockery I’ll fight the most.
As women march on Washington, my baby will be the size of a half-gallon of milk. I want her to have the strongest, kindest voice someday. I’ll be marching exactly nowhere, though my legs long to be out there in the cold. I hope no one mocks the marchers. I hope the marchers don’t spit on the pro-Trump signs. The pitch of violence in our words is exhausting, and useless, and boring, and all of us—even us grown folks—deserve so much better.