Coping strategies

Some thoughts gathered from Twitter this morning:

Inspired by Harry Belafonte, we’re reading this Langston Hughes poem in class right now. And listening to the Hamilton Mixtape.

The mood in the Park Slope Food Coop this morning was like a New Orleans funeral–multiethnic people talking about genocide to a soundtrack of funky jazz.

Maybe we’re wrong that Trump and a GOP-led Congress will be a disaster? We’ve been wrong about everything else. Maybe the accelerationist fantasies of Bernie dead-enders and Stein voters will come true. Maybe Trump’s following is sufficiently volatile that they’ll turn on him once he starts actually governing. Maybe the GOP will paralyze itself with infighting. Maybe we can organize against voter suppression, against Islamophobia and mass deportations. Maybe we can follow the right’s example and focus on local and state-level races, on think tanks, on talk radio.

For myself, the work of dismantling white supremacy through progressive music education has never felt more urgent.

I guess we get to empirically test Paul Ryan’s economic policies now.

Hope you guys in Silicon Valley have some bright ideas in the pipeline about addressing climate change, since the US government will be useless for the foreseeable future.

David Wong of Cracked explains well how this could have happened. He also recommends that we not panic.

Big data failed us hard. I hope we approach it with greater skepticism from now on.

Alex Pareene suggests some people who we should blame:

Blame the Founders for enshrining white supremacy in our constitution and making it nearly impossible to fully expunge. Blame a political system that advantages rural areas at the expense of urban ones, mostly in order to preserve our white supremacist heritage. Blame the electoral college and blame the people in power who have done nothing to stop this exact circumstance—a candidate winning the popular vote but losing the election—from happening for the second time in 16 years. Blame the people who put them in power without a mandate to fundamentally change the mechanisms of a system designed for an 18th-century slave society.

I’m really looking forward to raising a daughter in this world.

Im talking to you now surprised white people.

I wanna bring you in for an empathy moment.

— Absurdistwords (@absurdistwords) November 9, 2016

Whatever happens, it's time to bury neoliberalism. We need genuine wealth + power redistribution. Only a real left can fight fascism.

— Naomi Klein (@NaomiAKlein) November 9, 2016

I'm so sorry to all my LGBT brothers and sisters. I'm so sorry. https://t.co/SVcHP4glZL

— Imani Gandy (Orca’s Version) ⚓️ (@AngryBlackLady) November 9, 2016

If anything positive comes from this presidency I hope its the end of neoliberal moderates that have plagued the DNC over the past 20 years.

— Brian Donohue (@bthdonohue) November 9, 2016

on my mind b/c i'm teaching about it this week, but feels like the USA just held a nationwide Disco Demolition night https://t.co/xMAni9sT4P

— wayne&wax (@wayneandwax) November 9, 2016

Also, it's ok to be angry. It's ok to feel despondent and scared. It's ok. Reach out, talk to friends, talk to me, we're here for each other

— maura quint (@behindyourback) November 9, 2016

(Think for a minute about why its always "move to Canada" and never "move to Mexico")

— Aaron Bady (@zunguzungu) November 9, 2016

This is a hell of a time to be a new teacher; love and support to you and to those having this piled on top of academic anxiety season.

— Nick Seaver (@npseaver) November 9, 2016

https://twitter.com/EByard/status/796317753749729280

The unthinkable happened before, to my family in WWII. We got thru it. We held each other close. We kept our dignity and held to our ideals.

— George Takei (@GeorgeTakei) November 9, 2016

https://twitter.com/BloomfieldSJ/status/796237565259026432

Let's celebrate three landmark women that WERE elected last night:
1st Muslim @IlhanMN
1st Indian @PramilaJayapal
1st Latina @CatherineForNV

— Jake Sones (@jakesones) November 9, 2016

When we talk about online radicalization we always talk about Muslims. But the radicalization of white men online is at astronomical levels

— Siyanda Mohutsiwa (@SiyandaWrites) November 9, 2016

https://twitter.com/datageneral/status/796383509015384064

I'm from the rural midwest. All of this talk about coastal elites needing to understand more of America has it backwards.

— Patrick Thornton (@pwthornton) November 9, 2016

Fellow white guys,
Donate to planned parenthood. Volunteer to be an abortion escort.
Don't tell people it will be fine. Organize.

— Daniel Ralston (@danielralston) November 9, 2016

https://twitter.com/joeptone/status/796366969754841088