"You know you only have like 15 people on your invite list for your baby shower?"
My sister asks me as she's planning and organizing my upcoming shower.
"Yes. I don't know that many people. Correction. I don't like that many people."
I respond.
We both laugh.
I have my people. My sister is my ally. My brother is my strength and my comic relief. My mother is my student. My few friends are my fellow soldiers. And my husband, well, he is all of the above, and, sometimes most importantly, he is my emotional release. I can be strong, vocal, independent, willful, and valiant. And then when I see my husband, I can just cry. And he will just hug me.
Here's the thing. I like people. I love people. In general. I just don't have very many truly quality level "gosh I really like that person" that I want to come to my house and celebrate the coming of my next daughter. When I invite someone to my house, I am hoping we will have a good conversation. That if we disagree about something, we will listen to each other. That we share the same basic values of human rights and progress for our people. That when we say "our people" we mean, quite literally, everyone.
I do not mind being disagreed with, argued with, corrected. I look forward to it. I seek it out. My problem is that anyone that has not come to be part of my close circle of friends, is not in there because they refuse to present their case, and or they refuse to listen to mine. We can't be friends if there are topics that are off limits. We can't be friends if we can't engage in a rational, respectful discussion on any topic.
I don't attack people. I don't insult people. I don't get personal and try to make people I am talking to feel ashamed of who they are or their decisions. And if people do that to me, I end the conversation, and likely the relationship.
Disagree with me. Be a Republican. Be a full time working mom with a kid in daycare. Be religious. Be pro life. (All things I am not.)
But don't be hateful. Don't ridicule. Don't close your mind to ideas that differ from yours.
This is the problem with this most recent election. Millions of people heard one position of Trump's and stuck their fingers in their ears and sang "lalalalalalalalala I can't hear you" not only to everything else Trump (or Johnson or Stein) said (that those people actually disagree with) but also to the rest of the world saying "this is wrong. You cannot do this. These will be the consequences of your actions." We don't listen to each other. We don't hear other people's genuine pain. We can't recognize the struggles of others if they are not our own struggles.
I want to hear you, white working class people, telling me that wages have stagnated, that you feel unmoored, that the world is changing and you don't know how to respond. That you are afraid of immigrants and refugees. That you don't like to see women in positions of power because they make you feel weak and threatened.
But you have to hear me too. You have to hear me say the positions you hold hurt others. You have to hear me say that by allowing a person to represent one of your issues, you are also allowing him to represent so many more that you say you strongly disagree with. You have to hear me say that your Jesus would never agree with the things your representatives and co-voters are doing. You have to hear the cries of pain and injustice. You have to look outside yourself and start thinking about how your struggles and my struggles and the struggles of every other victim of "the system" are actually much closer together than they are far apart.
You have to hear me say again and again that we are the system. We are the change we want to see in the world. We are the police, the judges, the governors, the mayors, the school board, the legislators, and yes, the president. We give those people power. If you are unhappy with the system, educate yourself, inform yourself. Discover what decisions, what policy changes, what actual measures will improve your life, without hurting the lives of others.
But. In order to do all of this. We have to have a discussion.
I want to hear you. But you have to hear me too.
