hillary: i see you

Two Days until Election Day

Well, I’m nearing the end of my hillary: i see you art practice, but it’s okay. It’s time to move on to a less structured practice. It’s also time to get back to submission projects that have become victims of my distraction with the election. I mean, I’m a political junkie and the campaign process has taken over much of the passionate focus I have. Probably because this election represents two distinct sides. One side stands for inclusion and decency and the other divisiveness and fear. I’m strongly anti-divisiveness and fear. And, friends, it’s time to take a stand. It’s time to choose. Love or hate. Hope or fear. Energized for good or anxious with anger.

And what about that?

Almost daily now, the news has a segment on people’s anxiety. They’re sick and tired, journalists say. They’re depressed. I get it. Trump and his surrogates exhaust and stress me out too. And I’ve had to stop and ask myself why his run for office makes me feel so blue.

Here’s the answer…

From the start, Trump and his surrogates have gotten away with spewing bad ideas, irresponsible policies, conspiracy theories, and lies. But the bullying and suggestions of violence toward Hillary Clinton and her supporters is absolutely intolerable. And it matters. It matters to all of us. Because when certain groups become targets—the way we’ve seen people of color, the LGBTQ community, immigrants, or those practicing a religion other than Christianity, or practicing no religion at all, become targets—one must ask who will be next. I’d say, very clearly, that women have become the most recent target. All because we’re seeking equal representation at the highest level.

And here, I won’t mince words: I’m NOT sick and tired of listening to Hillary Clinton and her surrogates call out the bigotry, racism, ageism, and misogyny being spewed by Team Trump. In fact, I want to hear more of it. From anyone and everyone.

So, let me tell you a story…

Earlier this week my mother and I stumbled into an odd verbal altercation between a young man and woman outside a local café. They seemed to be in an argument, but they weren’t yelling, or even talking much. Facial expressions gave away their contempt for one another. Abruptly, the interaction ended when the man turned and disappeared down the sidewalk. The woman, however, stayed near the café, leaning on her car, talking on her phone. I commented to my mom that she might have called the police, and within minutes, an officer did pull up. The woman pointed him in the direction the man had gone, and once the officer left, the woman also drove away.

All the people on the outdoor patio of the café breathed a sigh of relief. The situation had ended and we could go about enjoying the great weather, sipping drinks, and chatting. But twenty or so minutes later, my mom and I would be on the receiving end of the man’s harassment.

As the man approached, we were both somewhat prepared. The patio had cleared out and I had two eyes on him. My mom went on alert when I got quiet and made a face. Somehow, I knew he was going to engage us. I just sensed it. I ran through what he could possibly say. Would he ask for money? Food? Is that what he’d been trying to get from the other woman?

Feeling protective of both myself and my mother, I watched him, watching me. He was clean-cut, wore nice clothes, carried an expensive-looking backpack. He was tall, lean, muscular. As my fight-or-flight mechanism kicked in and my adrenal soared, I knew—again sensing it—that he wasn’t in need of money or food. Instead, he had an agenda. His expression said so—aggressive, hostile, determined. When he stopped short of our table, I relaxed a smidge and let him speak first.

“Did you see what just happened with that woman? Did you see her accusing me? She thinks I was taking photos of her daughter.”

His voice betrayed his anger, and when we said we didn’t want to get involved, he took a step toward our table, interrupting us, raising his voice. “I’m telling you I didn’t do that. Did you see?”

I deepened my own voice and told him he needed to move along. This excited him and his hostility grew. He rambled on. I interrupted him and told him he needed to leave us alone. We didn’t want to talk to him. His face got red, but he took a few sidesteps away from us. Then he turned and pointed at us. “I told you my story. I told you!” He repeated this over and over.

This sent me to my cell phone. If need be, I would also dial the police. And he knew it. His face flushed again and his expression hardened. He leaned forward, body tense, like he wanted to pounce. “What are… What are you going…”

He trailed off and somehow gained enough composure to walk away. He ended up inside the café. We ended up leaving. We also called the café and told them the entire story so they could be on alert.

Now, an interesting side note is that as this was going down a middle-aged man had exited the café. He was obviously leaving, but according to my mom, he stopped and waited. I hadn’t noticed—I was so focused on our harasser—but I think it was incredibly kind of this gentleman to wait in the wings, in case the kid threatened us further or wouldn’t heed our warning to, well, fuck off. Thank you to this kind stranger.

And now to the point….

When it comes to the story between the woman who called the police and the angry kid, who knows what the truth is. Maybe he had been taking photos—they could or could not have been of the woman’s daughter. He seemed to be a tourist and there was a park full of interesting sights and kids across the street. But here’s the bottom line, men can NOT address women in this manner. EVER. There’s just some basic biological differences that make aggressive behavior like this more intimidating and scary for women. No matter who we are, where we come from, or what we look like.

Here’s what I mean…

In junior high, there was a tough girl who became the target of bullying on our bus ride home each day. I’ll call her Everygirl.

Everygirl was African-American and lived on the so-called wrong side of the tracks. She was new to our bus route and school and wore a serious expression from day one. Everygirl was also tall, with a sturdy frame. She looked strong. She looked like she wouldn’t take any shit. This must have presented as a challenge for some of the smart-ass Eddie Haskell types on our bus because they began to tease her. I didn’t sit near them, so I don’t know what they said, but they did get Everygirl to react. She’d toss insults back, mouth off, and on occasion, puff up on them.

Good for her, I thought. After all, these boys had teased me a time or two. Making fun of my crooked teeth, then my braces. According to them, I was on the Itty Bitty Titty Committee. While So-and-So was the Rocky Mountains, I was the Great Plains. Also, it was weird and gay of me to like The Cure when Van Halen was the band to worship. I’d landed a few good comebacks in my time, but mostly I’d laugh it off or ignore it. Because I could handle it. I got better grades than those boys and I had okay self-esteem. But just okay. And some days, the things they said hurt. So, I made a decision.

Every day it’s possible, I told myself. I’ll smile at Everygirl if she makes eye contact me.

I knew it wouldn’t be often—Everygirl mostly kept her head down while getting on and off the bus. And my opportunities would only come on the bus. She was a year ahead of me in school and I rarely saw her in the halls. Still, I wanted Everygirl to know I felt her pain, recognized her power, and understood her endurance.

Now, that may sound noble and mature of me, but truthfully I was scared shitless to do it and really didn’t know, if, when the opportunity came, I’d be able to go through with it. The thing was, I’d noticed that Everygirl had developed a dislike for some of the older, white girls on the bus, even exchanging harsh words with a few. Also, she’d once given my friend and me a (very) dirty look for sitting in a seat we didn’t know she’d claimed. It occurred to me that Everygirl might see my smile as sarcasm and put me in the same category as the others she disliked. Or the older girls might see me smiling at her and give me a hard time.

In the end, I didn’t get to smile or even grin at Everygirl more than a few times. Because in the end, she stopped coming to school.

It happened over a matter of weeks. First, the situation with the boys escalated when a boy pushed her and she threatened to hit him with her umbrella. The bus driver stepped in and some kids vouched for her and others for the boy. From then on, the teasing almost always had a physical element and a couple of boys, who picked on girls exclusively, had mastered subtle aggression. Flicking a bit of paper at her, touching her shoulder or her hair. Everygirl tried to ignore them, but sometimes, maybe on a bad day at school, she’d threaten to kick their asses. The bus driver reported all this to the school and our Vice Principal got on our bus one day and told us all to cool it. We had several calm days on the bus, but the bullying started again in drips and drabs. Soon, Everygirl chose a seat near the bus driver. Her serious expression turned to a look of defeat. And sadness. And then she was… Gone.

Was it the bullying? Or did her family situation make it hard to do well and/or stay in school? I didn’t know. But I did know that even if her family situation made it hard to attend school, the bullying on the bus only made it harder. And on occasion, from the bus window, I’d see her in front of her house. Once, taking out the garbage. That day the boys saw her too and yelled from the window. That’s when I wondered…

Why hadn’t the physical bullying been a bigger deal to the bus driver and VP, both men? If it’d been me—a smallish, middle-class, white girl—would they have stepped in from the beginning, the Umbrella Moment, and told those boys that aggressive behavior toward anyone, especially girls, was unacceptable? What I was asking myself was…

Was it the kind of girl Everygirl was that made the adults think they didn’t need to do more to make the situation right?

Was it the kind of girl Everygirl was that made those boys think their disgusting behavior wouldn’t harm her, and ultimately, was okay?

Look, here’s the thing. Because our physicality is so closely tied to our mentality, if any victim—consciously or subconsciously—believes they’re less physically powerful than their aggressor, they’re more likely to back down from a non-physical but heated interaction. But here’s the other thing…

Racism, bigotry, misogyny—these ugly attitudes have a unique affect on girls and women. Because when girls or women become the target of racist, bigoted, or misogynistic slurs or behavior our actual physical worth comes into question. We may look, sound, or act tough, but deep inside we aren’t just questioning if we can win the fight, we’re questioning whether we deserve to win the fight.

I’d say that’s what happened to Everygirl. And I think that’s what happened to my mom and me. The proof? The harassers stayed right where they were while Everygirl and my mom and I fled the scene.

So, I’ll say it again. The time has come. The time has come to stop being blue and start voting blue. All the way down the ticket, please. At the very least, go blue at the Presidential level. Go blue and make Hillary Clinton the 45th President of the United States. Consider it a do-over for all the fights we walked away from, for all the fights we should’ve stayed for, for all the fights we deserved to win.