Last night I watched the election results come in with my roommates. Some time after North Carolina and Florida started to look bad I started to do what I also do when I begin to panic: I imagined the worst case scenario. At first, I ticked off the big ones. The population my mother serves, her friends, might get deported. The economy might crash and people might lose jobs. The country might go to war and my students who are in the armed forces might get deployed.
Then, it sunk in that these were the far off things to worry about, the things I have no control over. Something larger loomed: What do I tell my students? What do I say, what can I say tomorrow morning to my beautiful, intelligent, terrified, Black students? Can I tell them not to be afraid when I am so scared myself? Can I tell them it will be okay when I am not sure I believe it? How can I look them in the eye and say anything comforting when I am so desperately in need of comfort myself?
These were the questions that kept me tossing and turning long into the night. In the sleepless hours of the early morning, I began to figure out what I needed to say.
This morning, as anticipated, my students asked me what I thought, how I was feeling and I told them the truth. I told them that I did not know what to say to make it better. I told them that I love them, that I loved them yesterday, that I love them today, that I will love them tomorrow. I told them I will be here for them, as long as they need me. I told them that today will be a hard day for all of us, but we must begin to look to tomorrow. Today, we are sad and scared and defeated, but tomorrow we must begin again the work of American democracy or, in the words of Barack Obama, "We must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America." Tomorrow, we must model in our own lives the very qualities we did not see this election cycle. We must show kindness, demonstrate community, listen and speak with respect, and live our lives with love for one another. Together is the only way we will move past this and move forward.
