A letter from November 13th, 2016

Dear FutureMe, When a church full of African-American men, women and children was gunned down by a white supremacist in Charleston, our outgoing President, Barack Obama, went to the church and sang Amazing Grace. He was no doubt mourning the loss of humanity represented by that act, and he found grace. I, like so many others, am mourning the loss of humanity in our entire country after the election of a white supremacist to the highest office in our land, and I am struggling to find grace for my immediate family members, relatives and hometown acquaintances who voted for him. Eight years ago I stood in Grant Park, tears streaming down my face with pride in the progress that our country made that night. For the past 5 days, tears have been streaming down my face with shame. I wonder how we got here, how we went from electing with an overwhelming majority a man who set out to unite this country and heal centuries of pain wrought by racism to electing a man who chants "build that wall" and inspires rallies by the KKK. And that's only representative of the ways in which President-Elect Trump has set this country back decades with regards to racism, to say nothing of setting us back with the progress we've made for women's rights, disability rights, LGBT rights, and more. He has also set us back with the progress we've been struggling to make for sexual assault victims. I am concerned that victims will now be even more likely to not come forward because they just saw a self-admitted sexual predator get the keys to the Oval Office. I want to be strong like President Obama. I want to find grace. But I haven't been able to even muster up the courage to call my dad since Election Night, who voted for him, because I don't know how to tell him that I've lost respect for him. I don't know how to tell him that ever since that video surfaced of President-Elect Trump bragging about grabbing women by the genitals, that I have been re-living the time when a man did that to me. I don't know how to tell him about how paralyzed I was in the minutes after it happened, unable to run after him or tell anyone around me what had happened. I have been re-living that experience every day since the election. I am mourning the loss of humanity in our country.