Photo by Matthew Baldwin
This election process has been a difficult thing to watch. As Election Night unfolded and President-elect Donald Trump was announced just days before my wedding, the feeling was totally surreal, to say the least.
I was ready to transition into one of the greatest partnerships the world will ever see, but have that moment be tainted by a president-elect who has done nothing but insult and humiliate marginalised groups and people of colour.
I am a first-generation American born of two immigrants, who in turn, has emigrated to the United Kingdom. I feel attacked from both sides in a pro-Brexit, pro-Trump world.
These are turbulent times, but these attacks on our personhood aren't anything we haven't seen before. Before today, BME people were and continue to be gunned down by law enforcement. Women's reproductive rights were consistently being attacked. LGBT rights were on the precipice of being overturned after years of hard work, and our indigenous people continue to defend our Mother Earth while climate change deniers have their day (quite literally) in the sun.
It's a strange time to be in love. It's a strange time to have so much love in my life when the world is heading in a direction that scares me and has me questioning my place in it.
Instead I choose to write. I choose to fight.
Here are a few things I plan on doing as we enter into this Donald Trump presidency, this pro-Brexit, climate change-denying 2017:
Call people out
Now this is incredibly important and I feel is the foundation for the next four years. Make people feel uncomfortable! Embarrass them! If there's one thing I feel we could be doing more as a society is admitting to the passive racism, misogyny, and discrimination that we let slide throughout the day-to-day. It's kind of a tough pill to swallow that your friend, grandparent, uncle, cousin, neighbour, or whomever, voted for Trump but isn't a hood-wearing cross-burning racist. But they put that all aside to be able to vote for him. They are being passively racist. And it's now our job to tell them so, now matter how uncomfortable that makes them or us feel.Donate time and money
This is probably one of the easiest ways to fight back. Monetary donations, volunteer work...I plan on doing both.Being active in groups that are important to me is one small way that we can protect ourselves and other charity groups. One of my favourite British writers Bridget Minnamore wrote an entire piece on this for The Debrief here and mentioned some UK groups worth reading up on and getting involved in like, Black Lives Matter UK, Housing Action Southwark and Lambeth, Sisters Uncut and Anti-Raids Network.
Jezebel wrote a long list of US organisations here as well, including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), who has received a record-breaking $7.2 million in individual donations since Donald Trump was elected. Meanwhile, Planned Parenthood has received over 20,000 donations in the name of Vice President-elect Mike Pence, as people have been donating in his name since the election. Pence has actively waged war against the reproductive health services charity for years, and I'm sure that fight will continue long into a Trump/Pence presidency.
Other groups that I plan on donating my time and money to include EMILY'S List, Lambda Legal, Stand With Standing Rock, and The National Immigration Law Center.
Support the work being created by women, POC and LGBT writers, filmmakers, musicians and artists
So much of what we consume in the arts is work created by, written by, directed by, or produced by white men. And while the latest Marvel or DC is great, we have to start supporting work created by minority groups.My friend Jeffrei inspired this one, when she posted this NPR article on Facebook about "reading the book that's not for you."
I try wherever possible to support work made by women of colour or the LGBT community, when there is still so much we haven't heard from those groups, especially within journalism.
BuzzFeed UK highlighted #BlackGirlMagic really well last month here with an incredible list of British women who are killing the game.
I'm so excited to watch Hidden Figures starring Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer and Janelle Monae, following the true story of a female African-American physicist and space scientist who calculated flight trajectories for the Apollo 11 flight to the moon in 1969.
These are the kind of stories about black women that I never saw when I was a young girl.
Read and watch everything (including the opposition) *in moderation
I've got to stress that in moderation because too much of that bigotry and racism isn't good for me. But it's important for me to step outside of my liberal bubble. I'm lucky enough to have such a diverse group of friends and family all over the world, and I can hands-up admit that I spend most of my team reading the likes of the Guardian, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. But it's important for me to step outside of that. Know and understand what's being reported to me and why, what it means, and what it means to conservatives, no matter how much I personally disagree.Focus more on protecting the environment
This is particularly hard for me as I'm definitely the kind of person who'll leave the lights on in the room that I'm not in, or the TV on if I'm not watching it. Living in a city and growing up as a cliche millennial who doesn't prioritise the environment over much else has really hindered my knowledge in these areas.But it's not cute or funny that our environment is seriously at risk in Trump's government, so I will do as much as physically possible in my rented accommodation to change that.
Energy saving light bulbs, recycling and a full-laundry load are a few of the really simple ways of helping save energy and BONUS cutting down on energy bills. I'm even going to get into Meat Free Monday to reduce my carbon footprint.
And that's me so far! It's important to stress how important self-care is during this time. Don't watch that awful video or read the comments if you just can't bear it anymore. What are your next steps? What do you plan on doing? How can we hold the government accountable in the next four years?
