10 Days, 10 Thoughts

In the aftermath of the 2016 election, I’ve had so many thoughts running through my head about the world we live, where I am in life, where do we go from here. I’m not alone and neither should any of us feel that way. We must find our unity to regain our strength.

(1) Last Friday, I had the privilege of presenting at the Association of College And Research Libraries (ACRL) Delaware Valley Chapter conference entitled CritLib: Theory and Action. I was presenting about my latest pedagogical praxis of teaching evaluating resources.  While the conference and my presentation sound tremendously academic and theoretical the weight of the election was felt in every question, comment or discussion during lunch.

While it may have been a week where we were looking for existential answers to larger political questions, being around like-minded, caring, empathetic human beings was the right place to be.

(2) Swarthmore Pennsylvania and College are really beautiful especially at this time when everything is dying, turning orange to brown. Burgundy shadows blast through the rays of sun through the arboretum.

(3) Saturday, I went to a two-day soccer tournament with my daughter. We were getting away which was great but we knew we probably encounter people amongst us that probably voted for Trump. Now don’t get me wrong, I’ve been around republicans for as long as I have lived and never hid being a proud follower of radical left politics. I have no problem talking politics that are steeped in liberal vs. conservative dichotomies, always bringing up the limited solutions for the working class through these discussions and inherent class struggles.  The problem with this election and the step that working class people took this election cycles is that they threw what Michael Moore called a Molotov cocktail against the system. And who could blame them? Capitalism and finance capitalism had monumentally failed them. Wages have decreased or stagnated, war seems never ending, health care costs and basic necessities keep rising. Workers are being forced to give back to a failed system that keeps making the 1% richer. But I digress.

      

What many workers were willing to concede is that racism and sexism is ok as long as we fuck with the system. Maybe they never considered the consequences of unleashing herds of vile racists that election would justify their actions. Most importantly their words or scribble symbols graffiti on the walls of schools or building. Maybe these were the same people who could never feel empathy with young black men killed by cops for the color of the skin. They shut their ears to the cries, turned up the volume on Fox News, blinded themselves with the relentless memes crossing their Facebook and twitter memes till nothing got in.

What we didn’t expect was that someone would come up to us and others and say people need to just move on. Yeah I will move on when the blood dries up from the sun and graffiti disappears into the history books. But until then, bring it.

(4) Before I went to Swarthmore, I needed a hair cut in a bad way. I tend to look more tired when my last remnants of hair grow long and wanted to look fresh for my presentation. The shop is a narrow line of chairs with hip-hop popping out of the speakers; the barbers are predominately Latino men as are the customers. I’ve developed a pretty good relationship with my barber, a young Latino man in his early 30s perhaps. Built like a truck but sensitive, Luis always wanted talk political or more philosophically since he knew I worked at a college.

Today the first thing out Luis’ mouth is "did you vote for Trump?" Of course,  I was like no way and thought maybe he was joking but as the conversation continued it seemed he was serious. Not antagonistic but I think he was surprised too.

As the conversation continued he went onto a litany of what I would call conservative talking points: about abortion, people aren’t tough enough, feminists go too far (couldn’t believe I consider myself a feminist, etc., etc.) Slowly but surely it was being revealed why a young working class, Latino would vote against their interest. While I was disappointed, it was not surprising since many of us our subsumed in our daily lives with information floods that come from our devices, stored in our pocket, full, loose and jangling hate, memes, posts, proclamations and shared phony stories or news.

What is real today for so many people and how do they define themselves? We won’t know unless we talk to them.

(5) FX’s Atlanta is really an awesome show and it was a reprieve from the doomsday talks. Smart, funny and viscerally realistic to the lives being lead in the Southern city. I know everyone is caught up in Westworld and I get the fascination of another world where fantasies are played out (hell, I grew up watching Mr. Rourke on Fantasy island).  Atlanta at most deals with our day-to-day struggles to make something happen. I can relate to that and hopefully more people can too not matter what their background is.

(6) Funny how Facebook and Google are NOW interested in fake news or racism on their platforms. Whenever I’d seen anything that was racist, xenophobic, homophobic, sexist I would flag it. And my flagging wasn't about borderline racist stuff; it was unapologetically awful.  But I’m glad they’re taking steps to eliminate “fake news”. As a librarian and critical reader, there are such things as fake news. This isn’t a euphemism for ideas I disagree with; there are actually sites out there that are producing information from the headlines or buzzed index words that are vehicles for selling garbage.

(7) Fact-checking is more important than ever before. Everyone needs to be tenacious and annoying like the reporters in All the President’s Men or Spotlight. Follow the money, follow the truth. Dig, Dig, Dig. You’ll find it.

(8) Dear people who are trying to blame ALL white people for Trump getting elected (mostly true?): if we are going to strive for a better society and fight back against what looks like intensified attacks on the working class, we’re going to have to redefine who are allies are. During World War 2, Jewish resistance against the Nazis was aided by working class and other “Germans”. We need to seek out points of unity and that’s why class politics need to be applied. The more black, Latino, women and other workers are super-exploited the easier it is to exploit white workers.  The only ones that benefit from our infighting are the ruling elite who are maximizing profits.

(9) Lots of lists have come out about how to get organized or how to get active. These are great; go do them. BUT look out your front window, there’s struggle there. Support your public library, public schools, city and state colleges, public employees, union workers, day workers, immigrant workers. These are people and institutions that have been under attacked by conservatives and neoliberals over the last 30 years. Clinton was not going to protect these either; she would’ve been a bit subtler in easing them away to private interests. Trump elected status expedites the process in the name of giving people a better choice and not wasting your tax money.

(10) Going forward, I am hanging in my office this quote from John Reed who wrote 10 Days that Shook the Earth about the Bolshevik Revolution. I think it speaks to how we got to where we are but ALSO how we will get out of it and win (hopefully) in the end:

"In the relations of a weak Government and a rebellious people there comes a time when every act of the authorities exasperates the masses, and every refusal to act excites their contempt.”

Protesters plan to descend on Washington, D.C., for Donald Trump’s Inauguration, and may number in the hundreds of thousands.PHOTOGRAPH BY JAY L. CLENDENIN / LOS ANGELES TIMES VIA GETTY

In Struggle,

R.