Trump, part 1

When Trump was elected, I was at first a bit exasperated and annoyed with white Americans’ doomsday reactions. 

People told me they couldn’t stop sobbing. Didn’t they consider that there were much worse events going on around the world that we should be more concerned about? Genocide, war, and starvation in Sudan, Palestine, and Chechnya just to name a few. What about those things? Were those deaths not worth our tears as well?

“Calm down, people. We’re going to have another election in four years,” I wanted to say. Didn’t they understand that many places around the world are under dictatorships that have no end in sight? Didn’t they understand what an extreme privilege we possess to even have an election in the first place? In the place where I live people don’t even dare to dream of voting. 

Didn’t people understand that even having the right to be posting whatever they wanted on Facebook was a privilege that many people do not have access to? Didn’t people understand that there were people—1.8 billion Chinese people to be exact—who do not have access whatsoever to Facebook in the first place, but even if they did, would not be able to post what they wanted, but instead would be subject to arrest if found with a post criticizing the government? Didn’t they realize that our situation, even if it was bad, was still 10 times better than most places in the world?

People declared the desire to move to Canada. Didn’t they understand that even being able to consider taking refuge in Canada was an enormous privilege? Did they know that the privilege of even carrying a passport in the first place is a privilege that for many people in the place I’m living now is nothing more than a pipe dream that will never be realized? Most people in the world cannot travel or move freely to other countries when they find themselves under political, social, or religious persecution. But not us. We have the ability to move to other countries if we so desire. Did they ever think about the fact that most people around the world cannot leave their own country freely, and if they do, they are more often than not rejected by the receiving country?  

But then again, I thought to myself, what right do I have to say anything at all? As a white US citizen, I may not be directly affected by Trump in the anxiously visceral ways of fearing for my life, the way many did feel after the election. My heart wrenches for the refugees seeking solace in our country only to be rejected again and again. I’m not ignorant of the facts. I know what Trump represents: a fascist, racist, sexist America greedily striving for power and control, not only in our own country, but across the world. But I cannot ignore the fact that even with Trump, our situation is privileged compared to so many around the world: we have the freedom to move away. We have the freedom of press to criticize the government. We have the right to assemble and protest. These freedoms of mobility and speech are freedoms that the people in the place I’m living do not have. In the recent past, people here have been shot and killed for protesting, and arrested on life sentences for writing about their opinions.

The next time you feel frustrated or sad or angry over Trumps policies, just stop for a moment and be grateful for two facts: 1) you will have the chance at another election in the near future, and 2) you can talk on the phone with your Congressional representatives (and be grateful that you even have an elected Congress!), write a newspaper editorial, email your friends and family, and post on social media without the fear of getting arrested and killed.