I’ve done a lot of complaining today. I’m certainly not the only one, though. I’m one of many people complaining about the election of Donald Trump as the next President of the United States.
But enough now. It’s time to quit complaining and start learning.
Why? Because complaining is pointless. It achieves nothing. All it does is make me feel better about the fact that I don’t understand how a man like Donald Trump could be elected into power in a democratic system.
The point there is: I don’t understand. The solution to not understanding is learning, not complaining.
I can complain as much as I like about a situation I don’t like. It won’t change that situation one tiny little bit. I don’t have the power to change the US election result. I do, however, have the power to direct my own attention towards trying to understand the forces at work in the United States that led to Trump being elected.
Nobody forced the citizens of the United States to vote for Trump. They did it of their own accord.
It’s too easy to dismiss the American voting public as being ignorant or stupid, but that doesn’t actually help at all and it is in any case not true. All it does is make me feel like I’m better than them in some way. It doesn’t help me understand them and their motivations.
So I say to myself: Quit complaining. Start learning.
Screw the Moon 
Oh, this is on white people.
So, to localise this, ask yourself which of the people around you, who don’t make racist commentary, might start if they are in an environment where its /okay/.
I am so done with being the kind of person to not say anything because I don’t want to turn the mood at a braai. Or do awkwardly shuffle off when someone shows me a racist/sexist/transphobic/homophobic meme.
This is scary because the *same* people whose decency was over-estimated in the US, also live in SA. I’m not talking about the overt, outspoken racists. I’m talking about all our friends, polite aunts and uncles, unassuming colleagues.. ones who don’t consciously believe in discrimination.
But maybe… just maybe, given the right environment… maybe their “#FeesMustFall is going about it the wrong way” will become “Just shoot a few and then see what happens,” which will in turn foster an environment of “bring back the Good Old Days”.
Ugh. This is on every white person who thought it could never happen, even if they didn’t vote for him.
[Remind me to take at least a day before responding on an emotional topic. But seriously. Screw this acquiescing silence.]
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