I’ve been quiet on the atrocities in the US lately, at least on this blog (I’m not so quiet on my personal FB / IG). My silence here is not in any way due to any lack of outrage, rage, discontent, and heartbreak over Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd, and their senseless murders. It’s more that I simply haven’t known what to say that can be a meaningful addition to the conversation, and I chose to stay quiet and listen to other voices.

But quiet can only last for so long. Without liberal outrage and protests, Ahmaud Arbery’s white supremacist murderers would still be walking the streets, no justice done; the chaos in Georgia’s police & judicial systems would have allowed those murderers and racists to escape punishment for their crimes. Without liberal outrage and protests, George Floyd’s police murderers would not have been charged.

Our country is horribly divided right now and I can’t believe that anyone could view what has happened and say that it is acceptable, but I do believe that our current president is in no way helping the situation. And has, in many ways, brought it to a head. He has no talent at bringing this country together and since he cannot even manage a cohesive and stable administration, there’s no hope that he can manage a healing narrative for this country. His ungrammatical and poorly spelled “tweets” boil with narcissistic, childlike rage; they are completely inappropriate in most situations, and the fact that he chose to call protestors exercising their right to peaceful assembly “thugs” (while showing no concerns over white supremacists marching in Charlottesville or MAGA protestors storming our own state capital carrying rifles, handguns, and automatic weapons – saying instead that our governor should “go out and talk to them – make a deal”) shows his complete lack of consistency and hypocrisy. I’m not sure what happened to the days when we held the highest elected official in this country to a high standard of behavior; his use of his voice is repugnant. His violent dispersal of protestors for an ill-advised photo op at a church disgusted religious and military leaders and his recent scheduling of a MAGA rally on Juneteenth in Tulsa shows his utter lack of respect for the lessons of history. (I say “lack of respect” rather than “lack of education” because I’m going so far as to give him the benefit of the doubt that he’s actually aware of the significance of that date and location, which may be giving him too much credit – but if he wasn’t, he should have been.)

Stuff You Should Know – Tulsa “Race Riots”

And more recently, his administration’s walking-back of protections for transgendered people – in the middle of Pride Month and on the anniversary of the massacre at the nightclub Pulse in Orlando – reinforce his commitment to divisiveness and intolerance.

So although my rage sometimes gets the best of me, and my disappointment in where we’re at as a country sometimes chokes me, I have to get over the feeling that speaking up does no good. For me, arguing with people on the Internet doesn’t, and neither does trying to change anyone’s mind; my own mind won’t be changed, and I don’t believe that I can change anyone else’s. But speaking up DOES GOOD. Voices saying, “this is not acceptable” does good. I am fortunate enough to be a single working woman with a child and I am blessed that voices like Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s defended and protected my right to equal pay for equal work. (Contrast that to the current president’s words about women – dogs, pigs, fat, ugly – ad nauseum.) I am blessed that I can own a house and pay for medical insurance for myself and my daughter and still have enough left over to donate – and I do donate – and I urge you to, as well – not a year goes by where I do not put my money where my mouth is and make donations to amplify voices such as Planned Parenthood, protecting access to safe reproductive services for women, and more recently to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and individual Go Fund Me’s for Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd’s families, as well as charities in metro Detroit providing access to food stability for local populations.

Call me a liberal? Fine. I’m proud to be one. I’m proud to be on what I consider to be the right side of history. If your biggest concern is whether someone is going to tell you to wear a mask in a store or come take your gun away, we don’t share similar values and what you call me is a matter of supreme indifference to me. And I’m your worst nightmare- a liberal woman with a voice, a checkbook and a VOTE.

And I can only hope that in 2020, we are able to remove the current president from office, where he’s done nothing so much as breed hatred, intolerance, divisiveness, walk back protections for minorities, and stifle opposing voices.

It’s a question of values.

The Biggest Marches and Protests in US History