This Damn Month (Brian Katcher)

I have to say that 2016 was really gunning for the title of worst year in a long time, what with the Cubs and Brexit and all, but things really solidified there at the beginning of November.

I feel like there are no more heroes. I feel that the bullies and bigots won.

Here's a little something I wrote shortly after I found out. I think it's time for all of us to step up and be heroes for people who are going to lose their voices shortly:

You know, I've followed politics since Reagan was in the White House. And it occurs to me, no decision a president has made has ever affected me directly. Seriously. I'm too middle class to worry about government aid or tax breaks for the wealthy. My parents paid for my college. I never served in the military. I'm male, so I've never worried about sexism or feared for my safety. I'm white and Christian so I've never been discriminated against, overtly or subtly. I'm heterosexual and cisgender, so I've never been told my love was wrong or illegal. Honestly, I could wait out the next four years, no problem.

But I'm not going to. I've known too many women who've told me about men who hurt them and didn't even realize what they were doing was wrong. I spent too much time in Mexico to dismiss a nation as a gang of 'rapists and murderers.' I've seen too much poverty to mock the desperately poor and the refugee, demanding they solve their own problems. I have too many LGBTQ friends who fought for their hard-earned rights for decades and rightly fear they're about to lose everything, including their personal safety.

And while my life has been blessed, I do know what a bully looks like. 

This is not the America I believe in. These are grim times, my friends, but we've been through worse. We will survive. No matter what happens, I have your back (whatever that's worth).