Dear America,
A lot of people are saying that the large groups of protesters in the major cities across America are whining that their candidate didn’t win. They pin the intolerance on their age, because most of them are millennials, stating that young people are being babies because they didn’t get what they wanted. As our President Elect would say, “Wrong!”
The people bravely marching through the streets are terrified for their country. They believe in an America that is inclusive to everyone, accepting of all religions, genders, races, and sexual orientations. They were told at a very young age that they lived in the land of the free.
This election has undoubtedly shredded through what we thought our America was. Our country was designated as “The Land of the Free.” A country where we are allowed to speak our minds, to separate ourselves from tradition (specifically the monarch), and start the new free world where we could be our own keeper. The premise of our country was and still is freedom. Of course, when we realized that this country was already home to the Native Americans, we raped, killed and pushed them to the opposite side of the country. We enslaved Africans. We fought a war to abolish slavery and won. The civil rights movement happened and we become one people, under God. Our country’s history is littered with inequality. And just when we thought it was over. Just when the LGBT community obtained equal marriage rights, when we started recognizing the systematic racism in the police force against African-Americans and built a movement to destroy it…. Just when we saw the light at the end of the tunnel, Donald Trump walks onto the stage.
He spouted racist, sexist, horrible things that I wouldn’t even feel comfortable saying out loud. All across our great country, every single reminisce of racism that was left emerged and agreed with him, because now there was a platform to voice the ignorant hate. For me, as a woman, I could not simply ignore the things he said. When I heard those things, I was immediately taken back to the time I sat in a dirty bar, after my best friend had called me crying after her and her boyfriend had broken up. I didn’t want to be there. Two guys around the age of 35 swarmed around her, feeding off of her sadness and buying us drinks without asking if we needed more. I took them gladly, thinking that if they wanted to stupidly spend money on me, I wouldn’t protest. Before you say that I was leading anyone on, just because you buy someone a drink does not mean they agreed to let you touch them in anyway. So, one of the guys starts throwing his limbs all over me, as if he’s lost all inhibitions in his joints. He placed his hand on my knee and I swiftly picked it up and handed it back to him. He looked disgusted with me and said, “Oh what’s wrong with you?” He looked at my friends and continued, “She must be the crabby one.”
This is what women all over the country are dealing with. Men who feel entitled to touch them for no reason, and to make them feel guilty or call them names when they refuse. I am 24 years old. I have experienced bar culture and I know as well as anyone that if you are a female, you do not drink alone. I have been drugged at a bar that I was at with my boyfriend. I have been cornered into a wall, I have been pressed up against the bar in clear view of the bartenders, and when I look around for anyone to care about the injustice, I see nothing on their faces. In that moment, I know that I am the only one who will stand up against it and I proceed to tell them to kindly fuck off.
The sad thing is and the reason that so many people are flooding the streets right now, is that you, America, have elected one of these dirty men as our Commander in Chief. Imagine how defeated we felt when we heard the news. No one, not even the land of the free, believes you have the right to stand up against these men. I was silenced again. I was looking around a crowded bar, searching for someone to see the pain in my eyes and no one looked up.
Those protesters are storming the streets because they refuse to let the country settle on one of those men. Others have criticized theses protesters saying that they are committing treason for not respecting our democracy and our new president. Yet our country and democracy itself was founded on this type of rebellion. The second he was elected, half of the entire country was overwhelmed with terror and felt incredibly alone.
Our schools are filled with children of immigrants who are legal citizens, while their parents are not, because of how difficult the process is. Those children understand that Mommy and Daddy or no longer going to live with them and they are going to have to go into foster care. Because foster care in America is still a better life for them in the eyes of their parents. Muslim children are afraid to wear their hijab in public. African-Americans are receiving the message loud and clear that our country does not care about systematic racism in the police force and that we are actually going to implement a known racist practice of “Stop and frisk” in the inner cities. Our daughters are being told that men can touch them in inappropriate places, without asking. Members of the LGBTQ community are reminded of the torment they endured growing up, of being slammed into lockers and the derogatory names. They will drown in the realization that they can no longer hold onto the dream of their wedding day.
The streets of our country are not filled with unpatriotic rebellious souls, but they are filled with the very premise our four-fathers dreamed of. They are standing up for freedom and the premise that all Americans have a voice. It is a beautiful echo of the marches during the civil rights movement and an example exercising our right that is in the Constitution to freedom of speech and to protest in a peaceful assembly. They are standing up for all of our friends in the LGBTQ community, for our brothers and sisters of color, our Muslim friends, and all of the women who are too afraid to stand up to dirty men.
The message from the millennials to Donald Trump is ringing through the country and that message is: You can’t silence our voice. We refuse your country filled with inequality. We were promised the land of the free.
Sincerely,
A Nasty Woman
