I fucked up in a class. It’s a class that often focuses on the United States’ inability to be inclusive. A class discussion was getting really negative and the instructor indicated they were going to give up and live someplace they felt comfortable. After fighting with several young people online recently who aren’t going to vote or are voting for a fucking third party in presidential election (we'd have to get rid of the electoral college first for a third party even have a remote chance of winning at the presidential level) I was feeling frustrated with the give up mentality, especially coming from a person in authority.
My memory is blurry because I felt attacked and misunderstood (without the ability to make record of what I was saying for reevaluation later -a trigger for my childhood trauma.) But I know I said America is different and I meant it.
White people are the majority but won’t be for long and that is because people want to come here and want to stay. (They aren’t invaders like the European colonizers who murdered the indigenous people who were here when they arrived.) The people who come here now want to become a part of our communities because the U.S. is different. It is a unique place that is designed for growth and change. That doesn't mean we don't have problems.
I remember someone saying the U.S. has a violent history in an accusatory tone, as if I said we didn’t. I think I yelled ‘I didn’t say we don’t.’
We don’t just have a violent history, we have a violent present. (You can’t encourage your citizens to have unlimited guns and not have violence.)
So my attempt to get young people to not give up turned into me being offensive in class, getting upset, crying and spending most of class trying to calm myself down in the restroom. I felt so sick I had to go home, take a sedative, and miss another class. I emailed the instructor to apologize and said I would remember my place in the future. And I will.
This is my place. A website that belongs to me in a diary that I express what I need to get out of body and give it someplace else to live.
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