Wednesday, August 16, 2017

Dear Facebook Friends & Fam,

So I am hopping back on here for a minute to speak my mind, to say the things that I’ve meant to say since 11/9, but have been biting my tongue every day since.
I have been blessed to have two Holocaust survivors in my life. I have heard their firsthand accounts of the horrors of fascism, of the murder of their beloved families and friends, of their own brutal path to survival, of the way that ordinary people just turned away and let hatred grow and build until it became a nearly unstoppable force of destruction. And yet, still, witnessing this for themselves, they chose to believe in the beauty of humanity, in the hope of America, a nation that fought and helped to defeat this great evil.
So are you happy now? Is this land, the actual opposite of the promise that caused Anna and Schlomo to move here, a land of bullying and hatred and intolerance, of disrespect of all of our immigrant roots, denial of our promise of equality, is this the America you wanted? Is America great for you now, today, in Charlottesville, VA?
I hope you’re happy, I hope you’re exuberant. Because this America is not great for me, or my family, or my friends, it is actually a threat to our lives. We tried to warn you, we tried to tell you that OUR CHILDREN’S LIVES would be endangered if this level of hatred was unleashed from the dark shadows where it has lived for a long, long time, and now is unrestrained. We are not naïve, we knew it was there, and we knew exactly what would happen if it was given a real place at the head of the table.
We told you there would be Nazis in the White House, and there are. We told you the justice system would be run by white supremacists, and it is. We told you that immigrants, that people like our parents, and our grandparents, innocent people who have labored and suffered to reach the American dream, would be ripped from their families, and they are. We told you that gay rights would suffer and be set back, and they have been. We told you that women would have to give up our rights, and we have. We told you that our beautiful land, our very breath, would be endangered by science deniers, and it is. Whether any of those are your beliefs or not, you chose to turn away and ignore what we were all telling you. OUR FAMILIES ARE IN REAL DANGER IN THIS AMERICA.
So today, as I watch my country turn into a place that is a threat to my children, I have one request for those of you who chose not to listen to us.
Please stop pretending. Stop pretending that you’ll care if this form of hatred spreads and is turned on my family. Please stop pretending that you’ll care when it is turned on our Muslim friends. Please stop pretending that you’ll care when it is turned on our immigrant friends. Please stop pretending that you’ll care when it is turned on our LGBTQ friends. Please stop pretending that you’ll care when it gets worse, which it will, and open your eyes and stop pretending that you are shocked by what you see. You unlocked it.
Please stop pretending to be my friend. Unfriend me. Cross the street when you see me. Roll your eyes in disdain at what a snowflake I am. I don’t care. I would rather you show your real feelings, that you believe people like us have no place in this country, right to my face. You’ve already shown which torch you stand behind right here on Facebook.
And for God’s sake, please stop pretending that you actually give one single f*ck about Felipe or Jake or Kai. I will spend the rest of my days on this Earth, trying to be a good Christian, trying to find a way to forgive those who with their vote or non-vote have shown how little they care about my family’s rights and safety. But right now, TODAY, I have no room for hypocrites. Blow it all up, start a new world war, make America in exactly your mirror image, rage at the rest of us all you want, revel in the hostile and bullying language, feel satisfied at our outrage that the boots of hatred are coming back to crush people like us again. I will follow the path of my mother, of Liz, of Momma J, of all the accepting and loving women I know who chose to live a life of tolerance and love and acceptance. I will be mother above all. I will protect all the children I can—every last one of them—because I will never judge any single person the way that you have all judged people like me and mine.