The first thing I did on Wednesday morning was cry.
I grew up in the 90s, inundated with images of The Rock delivering the People’s Elbow to the face of crumpled men and the songs of Tupac crushing “I hit ’em up!” into the wounds of East Coast egos. Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger taught me that tears were the ultimate sign of weakness; Tom Cruise and Pierce Brosnan said they were only appropriate in moments of utter defeat and failure. “Men don’t cry,” they warned, “Men are strong. They don’t quit.”
And yet, on Wednesday morning, two decades of internalizing hypermasculinity’s creeds couldn’t muster an ounce of fight against the brokenness in my heart.
Privately, I had insisted that there was no real chance of Trump earning a seat in the Oval Office this fall. It wasn’t simply that I placed my trust in Nate Silver’s daily updates and polling numbers, their promising percentages reflecting Hillary’s qualifications over America’s continued misogyny; it wasn’t simply that the myriad of scandals surrounding Trump’s candidacy and character were adequately and accurately distilled into memes on Instagram and seven minute monologues from Stephen Colbert; it wasn’t simply that literally every media source that I currently lend credence to routinely eviscerated Trump’s policy, honesty, and competency. It was because I believed, had soaked through the deepest arches of my soul, that the majority of America could not embrace hate and anger, sexual violence and bigotry, over the promise of progress.
On Tuesday night, it became piercingly obvious just how foolish and naive I was. Every reported red state sliced an inch deeper into a heart of hope, tearing open new wounds until it was rendered a limp puddle of exhaustion and pain. I had believed in love, in justice, in possibility; now, my niece would be born into a nation in which its leader openly brags about groping women. I had prepared to race into class, lifting up my Muslim, Black, and Hispanic students– my immigrants, my minorities, my girls– with a shout: anything is possible! Now, I wondered what I could possibly say to them that would be louder than what America told them that night: you don’t matter; your voice doesn’t have a say; you don’t belong here.
But as Wednesday wore on, as I saw friends hold each other and say, simply, I love you; you matter, as I heard teachers singing carols and drawing their classes closer to their hearts, as I followed a group of earnest student journalists through the heart of Indianapolis, I rediscovered a truth I had forgotten: South is strong. We are strong enough to shoulder each other’s pain; strong enough to see that we are beautiful, loved, and cherished; strong enough to turn fear into fire, to turn collapse into community.
It’s a cheesy line, a cliché that I would normally circle in red ink and scribble “AVOID” hastily over, but this adage struck me just a little harder than the results of Tuesday’s election: They tried to bury us, but they didn’t know that we were seeds. And when I look into the eyes of Mona, of Kaavya, of Kayla, of Jaehun, of Marcus, of Corina, of Nate, of Adin, of Jadon, of Ava, of Windley, of Lily, of Rhea, of Naimah, of Senait, of Gio, of Kiki, of Bhavik, of Tema, of Abby, and of countless others, I do not see fear, I do not see quit. I see fight; I see love; I see seeds, ready to dig roots, to stretch and shove up, to climb through the soil and realize the richness of the sky.
And so, to my Muslim students, to my female students, to my feminists, my lovers of justice and pursuers of love, to my Black and Hispanic students, to my brothers and sisters who are facing the next four years with linked arms and open hands: they sure as hell don’t know what you’re made of, and I can’t wait for you to show them.
-Mr. Samuel Lee
Beautiful article, Mr Lee <3