On Trump's Victory

I had been planning to write a cute post about taking Madeleine to vote for our first female president. I had been planning to share how surprisingly emotional I felt at the last moment, how although I had never been an enthusiastic fan of Hillary Clinton, I was proud to see a woman in the top political office of our country, and how I hoped it would presage a more equal world for women, one in which my infant daughter would grow up and flourish.

Instead I am dismayed and discouraged, outraged and in disbelief. Like all of my friends, the media, the pollsters, etc. etc., I did not see this coming. I had no idea this could be coming. Though I was born and raised here, I do not know this country. I am deeply sad for my fellow Americans who are immigrants, women, minorities, disabled, Jews, etc. etc. In this post, I am trying to articulate why I am taking the absolutely resounding defeat of Hillary Clinton and equally resounding victory of Donald Trump so personally. Part of it is this: when I hear the slogan "Make America Great Again," I hear the enthusiasm for a time when I could never become who I am today. Professionally, I work in a field dominated by white men. I am being told that not only do I not belong, I never should have been admitted in the first place. My education, talent, training, and hard work count for nothing.

I remember when I was living in Greece in 2009-2010. I was astonished by how often I was asked in a friendly and conversational tone, "Where are you from?" by various Greek folks I interacted with; I always said, "I am from America," to which the same reply always came, "No, where are you from?" I insisted again, "from America," and my interlocutors would sometimes become impatient. Finally I would say, "My relatives came from China," and they would say, "Ah, China! There was a group of Chinese tourists here yesterday." How could I explain that to me, Chinese tourists are foreigners, and that America is my homeland? It was clear that in this place, nationality and race/ethnicity must be identical. One couldn't be both American and Asian. What a relief it was, then, to come home to this melting pot, to a place where diversity is a strength, where a black man could be president and I could be an American, full-stop. Was that all a dream?

It's a commonplace that after 8 years of one party's rule, presidential politics shift in the opposite direction. Before this campaign began, I fully expected the Republican party to reclaim the White House. A number of Obama's policies were unsuccessful; the Republican party had invested a lot of effort in grooming a strong class of rising conservatives ready to present a different vision. But the country didn't want either vision: it wanted to burn down the house; Trump won in part because he is NOT a conservative. I still cannot believe that a man who believes what Trump believes and has said what Trump has said became the candidate of choice for Americans. I don't need to rehash his beliefs here – but I'll say this, immigration from Asia is now the fastest-growing immigrant category in the US. When people are looking for a scapegoat, they will not be content to vent their resentment and violence on merely our black and Latino neighbors; they will come for us, too. We have seen this before in our country (Chinese Exclusion Act, anyone?), and I fear its resurgence. Naked racism and open white supremacy have just been reaffirmed in the most public way, and they will touch us all.

Now time for a paragraph about misogyny: Clinton was a fatally weak candidate (it turns out), with tremendous baggage that she piled on herself–the poor judgment, the clannishness and tendency towards corruption, all of this also well documented. But she was also incredibly well-prepared, smart, studious, dutiful, and really cared. In these positive qualities, I wanted to see something of myself. I hold a minor leadership role, and I know that I am not the most charismatic, the most exciting visionary, the most popular person, nor when people imagine someone in my position do they ever imagine someone who looks like me. They imagine a white man, just like my predecessors. But my responsibility is to lead and to teach, and so I try hard, I work hard, I show my sincerity, and I put all my skills and talent to work for my cause. And it's hard – I wear heels so I appear bigger to the people who are all bigger than I am; I lower the tone of my voice when I speak so I sound less "shrill" and "squeaky"; I try not to show too much emotion so people won't think I'm "hormonal" or "unstable"; I prepare everything to a T so that I cannot be called "stupid" or "incompetent"; I couch my opinions more gently so that I'm not called a "bitch." My male colleagues do not have to do this. Because I experience this every day, I am more sympathetic to the tightrope that Clinton has had to walk. But the message of this election is that none of these efforts matters; that someone completely unqualified and unsuitable is preferable because he yells louder, demeans others better, and cares only about his own status. His utter dismissal of women, his treatment of women as objects rather than subjects are central to his appeal, and I cannot stand it. I have been groped, grabbed, leered after, and reduced to my sexual parts by strangers for a long time, but never have I felt so physically vulnerable as I do today.

I reserve my last major point for the white evangelical church. It was hard for me in 2004 to see the political agenda of evangelical Christians reduced to a narrow set of priorities. I had spent the summer of 2004 in Uganda, where I had my first experience with an utterly different church culture, and frankly, saw a level of poverty and suffering that I still don't understand. How was it that we were representing Christ to the world as only concerned about abortion and gay marriage? But George W. at least was a sincere believer, and his work to distribute HIV/AIDS medication in Africa still sticks in my mind as a beautiful example of the good someone with love for the vulnerable and a place of political power can do. That white evangelicals voted overwhelmingly for Trump (a non-Christian who has a long record of being pro-choice and supporting liberal social policy) tells me a lot about the American church today–that it ultimately cares about power and superiority and influence, that its heart does not break for the refugees, the vulnerable among us, the imprisoned, the meek and lowly. I do not believe that the Democratic platform is a Christian one, and I am not advocating that all Christians should vote en masse for the Democratic party. But I have often thought that if Jesus were to minister in America today, he would not be attending our suburban megachurches on Sunday mornings, or our Wednesday night prayer meetings, or Saturday afternoon youth groups. I feel strongly that he would be with the homeless, the transgender, the drug addicts, the mentally ill, the people living on the streets whom I avert my eyes from and whose stench I literally hold my breath to avoid. He would reject our politics of respectability and middle class comforts. We are the Pharisees: we cherish our systematic theology and debate the most faithful translations of the Bible (learn Greek, y'all); but we do not love the poor (too lazy!) or turn the other cheek (we must protect our rights!) or shatter the world's expectations with an outpouring of costly love for those who are different from us (they are evil and must repent first!).

Now this is the "carry on" part: the sun has risen today, Maddie will wake for her second nursing soon. Trump voters are still my neighbors. I am a college professor, and I will return to my classroom filled with black and brown students, young women in hijabs sitting next to young men in yarmulkes. Let's get some more white men in the door. But I grieve and I hurt and I fear. Pray for us.

A retirement party

A couple of weeks ago, I hosted a big party/fundraiser for the language program I direct. The occasion had two purposes: to celebrate the career of my predecessor and to establish a scholarship fund in his honor. In its forty-plus year history, my program had never held a fundraising event, so I was a bit nervous. Would anyone come? Would we raise any money? How embarrassing would it be if we went through all this work and sent out invitations and planned a big party, and then no one showed up and we raised $40? I had no experience with this type of event planning, and I wasn't receiving much help from others either. I got pretty stressed out.

But, as these things tend to do, it came together at the last minute. A colleague of mine offered the use of his brownstone and patio in Murray Hill as an event space. This saved us thousands of dollars. The college's Communications office designed beautiful invitations for us, and the college Foundation paid for printing the invitations. We sent out over 1200 invitations to alumni and friends of the program all over the world. And then I waited to see what would happen!

In addition to organizing the party, I was responsible for the food, drink, music, program, and general coordination. This was a lot of work. I wanted it to be all classy-like, but we had no money for it in the budget, and I was planning an event in Manhattan at someone else's house, which comes with its own complexities. In the end, about 60 people came, we raised over $20,000, and most of all, my former boss/mentor felt honored and appreciated. All four decades of alumni were represented, as well as many departmental colleagues. I was really inspired: I could look around the room and see the legacy of a 40-year teaching career. I don't think anyone will be saying the kinds of things about me that people were saying about my predecessor, but it is a worthy goal to aspire to!

 We got lucky with the weather: the previous day had dumped 5 inches of rain on the city, but the sun came out just two hours before the party was due to start. A vigorous sweep of the patio and quick arrangement of furniture made it the perfect place to chat over wine.

Presentation of the food!

People came and ate

Listening to toasts out on the patio

Including mine – can't resist a captive audience!

And my real triumph: my predecessor loves tapirs, and we gave him a book print from an 18th century French natural history text. I found the print, paired it with a quote (suggested by a colleague) from Euripides, and got the thing custom matted and framed, all within a week before the party!

I never want to do this again – I will find the money beforehand to hire a darn caterer – but I have to say, in the end, it was worth it.

New Year's Resolution: 2014

This year, I want to stop panicking, tamp down the anxiety, and do what I need to do. As this meme's popularity fades with 2013, I'm giving it one more boost into the new year:

Happy new year, everyone!

a metamorphosis of sorts

An analogy I've been using lately to describe how I feel about my work is, "I feel like I'm being crushed like a bug." The combination of feeling burdensome responsibility without concomitant authority makes me feel weak and insignificant, powerless to push back against the forces pressing me into the ground.

Sarah, ever the innovative encourager, advised me not to think about myself as just any bug, but as a cockroach. That's right – they're impossible to kill, difficult to crush, and skillful evaders of danger (but too gross for illustrating in this post).

In high school, we caught a cockroach in the hallway (plenty to choose from!) and put it in a bell jar vacuum in the physics closet. We sucked all the air out of its spiracles and watched it collapse. We went to work on a project, came back a half hour later, released the vacuum, and then stared slack-jawed as the cockroach. came. back. to. life. With great respect, we released it back into the hallway.

I've frequently felt over the past few months that there's something pressing against my chest, making it difficult for me to breathe. Sure, maybe that's a minor panic attack. Or maybe it's just the staging ground for an incredible comeback, à la vacuumed cockroach! Okay, no one actually believes it's the latter, but I am really taken with Sarah's suggestion. I don't need to be a graceful dragonfly or stunning butterfly, elegant and attractive. This doesn't need to be a narrative of victory and glorious triumph. I just need to survive, and maybe that is more possible than I realize right now.

coping

I've been thinking a lot recently about a conversation I had with my department chair several weeks ago. It seemed fairly unremarkable at the time, but my chair started our discussion by saying, "I was thinking about all the issues facing us right now, and I started to feel overwhelmed, so I sat down and made a list of things that we do actually have control over, and I wanted to share them with you." Now I realize that he was teaching me about how to survive in this job: focus on what you can actually control.

Part of the issue with adjusting to my job is that the boundaries between what I can or can't control are not yet obvious to me. This is probably due to my inexperience. A crisis will arise, and I will respond as if there's something I can do about it; it won't become clear until later that the issue was out of my hands the entire time. This is frustrating, but educational, and I'll learn.

At the moment, there are some things I know I can control. I want to focus on them over the next several weeks:

• Research: this is my time to bang out some articles. Although my job still makes demands on my time, I do have the time and space to focus on my work. I need to make the most of it, because when this time is over, it won't be nearly as easy to spend an afternoon reading and writing. When I was sick of finishing my dissertation, I never imagined how precious I would consider my research time!
• Well-being: the main assaults on my mental health are job-related stress and anxiety about getting Dave and myself to the same geographic location on a permanent basis; these are both long-term issues that will take some time to address. But what I can do now is make the effort to cook and eat healthfully, be disciplined about getting enough rest, and exercise (e.g., running twice a week and meditation of some form). These don't directly address the stressors, but I hope they'll make me stronger and more flexible (mentally and physically) when I have to deal with them.
• Kindness: yeah, I'm pretty stressed out. But I have so much to be thankful for, and I can practice my thankfulness by being kind to others. I remember this little tiff I had with a woman in my choir back in 2005, when I was stressed out about applying for graduate schools. I was so sleepy during rehearsal, that I was reading a magazine when the sopranos were not actively rehearsing to stay awake. The woman behind me scolded me, which made me indignant. She emailed me later that night to apologize, saying that she had been out of line. I responded by explaining that I was sleep-deprived because I was going through a lot of stress, and she replied to say that she totally understood – her mother had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's the previous year, and she had had to put her in a nursing home, and bring her father home to live with her – and that I could call her anytime I needed someone to talk to. Umm, yeah you win, lady! I should have been more gracious towards her in her outburst. I've been trying to remember that lesson ever since: you never know what's going on in the lives of people around you, and a small gesture of kindness may go a long way in someone else's life.

Just typing out these plans have made me feel a little better. My hope is that at the end of the next few months, though I'm unsure about where things will stand on various issues with my program, I'll be able to say that I was disciplined about my research goals, worked to stay sound in mind and body, and was kind to others (esp. Dave!).

Hurry Up and Wait

I'm slowly easing into my new job over the course of the summer, and it's been quite the learning experience. A significant portion of my job is concerned with directing a language program, which means that I will be responsible for some important (and many more non-important) decisions.

It's the rhythm of the decision-making process that has surprised me. A mini-crisis will arise. Emails will fly back and forth, widely cc'ed, bringing everyone up to speed. Conference calls will be arranged, or in-person meetings when possible. We will discuss possible strategies, anticipate consequences, organize the order of action and who is responsible for what. Memos are composed, shared, rewritten, and approved. All in about 24 hours. My brain will be on fire.

And then...I wait. Sometimes for weeks! A crucial administrator is taking a well-earned vacation. A long-planned meeting is suddenly canceled because someone else has a bigger emergency, and it can't be rescheduled for ten days. The people I've turned to for advice will follow up with me and ask me about what decision has been made or what end result has been reached. I don't know!

And now I don't know what to expect after the waiting stage. Will the mini-crisis suddenly be resolved, with a decision handed down from on high? Will it require several more days of emails and conference calls, each round likewise separated by weeks? How do I know when it's actually over? And in the meantime, how do I return to concentrating on my other responsibilities? So much to learn...