I Made a Face of Angry Confusion So Long It’s Now Stuck This Way

I need to process what happened tonight, but god, I don’t want to insult anyone. Important Person A invited me to a thing at a ritzy place full of liberals to hear Important Person B and Important Person C talk and then meet B and C because I might run into them again.

So, A, who I don’t really know, was doing me a big, generous favor.

I was the fattest woman there, by far. There were a couple of plump women, but nobody genuinely fat. Which makes sense, I guess, since these were all people who could afford to be affiliated with the ritzy place and if there is one thing I have learned, it’s that fat and class are very closely linked.

Most of the time, I don’t give a shit, because if we’re going to be pulling out intellectual dicks, well, I’m not ashamed of the size of mine.

But it became quickly apparent that the talk was going to be on “them.” The people who voted for Trump. Those mysterious angry white people. Which I felt so dumb about because I should have realized the second I saw that I was the fattest person there, by far, how the talk was going to go.

I have to tell you, though, I now get why the media describes Trump supporters as these blue collar salt-of-the-earthers. Because apparently plastic surgeons who live in the city and have a country house with a pool and diplomat friends are “upper middle class.”

I feel so angry. I’m so angry that people like me are these odd mysterious creatures you have to go out and find and study and work to understand. I’m so angry that people who admit they don’t understand us think that it’s then their job to bring me (angry at Trump voters) together with Trump voters so that we can learn to understand each other.

Bitch, it’s Saturday.

I went to school with Trump voters. I share DNA with Trump voters. I live in a state ruled by Trump voters. Don’t stand there telling me how, because YOU don’t know MY life and the life of my people, I must need to talk more to fucking Trump voters.

But everyone else was just clapping along and nodding and “oh, that’s so smart and insightful”-ing and all I could do is sit there thinking “I hate everyone in this room and I would never willingly choose to be in this room again with these people.”

And, I have to tell you, part of the reason I’m so upset is that I’m not really sure why I felt that kind of visceral hate. They seemed perfectly lovely. And obviously, they’re all great do-gooders who mean well and do good things. They’re on my side. I’m on their side.

They didn’t mention race once. So, no mention of the deep, deep racism fueling this nonsense. And I’m not interested any more in discussions of what’s going on in America, why we’re so fucking divided, that doesn’t admit up-front the A1 problem of racism. Every discussion that ignores racism is bullshit and a waste of time.

They tut-tutted about the Women’s marches not being nicer to anti-abortion people, as if there’s some room for disagreement between whether I have the right to make decisions about my body or whether you should get to dictate what happens to me.

Just, god, I don’t know. Everything about it made me feel really alienated from people I’m supposed to view as my peers. And I’m sad and angry and embarrassed. And I’m mad at myself for sitting there silently, like I was tacitly agreeing with all the liberal do-gooders safe in their ritzy enclave. And jealous, too, frankly. Deeply jealous.

Rage

It’s only been a week, but I swear, the longer it goes on, the more enraged I am that people did this to us. Not just that, but then they’re all hurt that we won’t just make them feel okay about it, that we won’t “let” things get back to normal. They want to have done this shitty thing and have it mean nothing.

And you know, why shouldn’t they get their way? What in American history tells them they won’t? I’ve been thinking how often white people do some dumb evil thing that other white people disagree with and know is evil, but the second group of white people run around American history trying to make the first group understandable and to help us all relate to them and come together with them. Brother against brother, so let’s have a family reunion and keep the power of the country in our family’s hands.

Bah, I’m not being clear. Basically, though, it’s this–we propagate national myths of white tragedy so that white people, even when we have internal disagreements, will try to find ways to be kind to each other, which, since part of the people doing the disagreeing are unabashed white supremacists, means that “good” white people are constantly arguing for kindness toward and understanding of utter shitbirds, on the mistaken belief that this is what makes us “good” people. And all that reinforces white supremacy.

This is obviously familiar to anyone who’s been in an abusive situation. (And I’d argue that you can see Trump’s actions this weekend as the ‘isolating from friends and family’ stage.) Everyone feel sorry for the abuser who just can’t help but be a jackass. Maybe if we’re all kinder to him or her, he or she will see that niceness is awesome and take up the habit.

But it doesn’t work. And it’s cruel to the asshole’s victims.