Post-election Panic Evident on Facebook

I have diverse friends. Some of them are from my long-ago small town upbringing, and one of those posted on Facebook  "all I can do is cry."  She laments that this election has doomed our country and her grandchildren will never know America the Beautiful the way we did.

My response to her launched a Facebook conversation among friends of friends. Here is what I tapped out on my iPhone as I commuted to work yesterday.  Though it was written off-the-cuff, I think it's worth repeating here, with my Palin Place friends.

Yes, it's true.  Our grandchildren won't grow up in the same America we did.  Nor do we know the America that our parents were born into.  Take a look at the bigger picture. My grandmother could marry but could not vote at that time. My mother became a nurse, but never would have dreamed of becoming a doctor. We grew up while adults fought over making laws to protect minority men from workplace discrimination. Yes- men. Protection for women was an add-on to the Civil Rights bill in a last ditch effort to defeat it. The thinking was that congress might vote for Negro rights but for sure they would not give women equality. My first job interview took place in the mid-seventies in Civil Service offices over the corner drugstore downtown where, at 19,  I was asked by the white 50 yr old man running the place " I see you are married, when do you plan to have a baby ?"

Leaning forward is good. Change is good. The old days are gone. Embrace the possibility that there can and will be change that is good for someone who isn't just like you. There are many different people who dont look or think like you or me or have our little northern 99% white hometown in their life experience but they are Americans, too.

Democracy lives. In spite of huge donations by a handful of wealthy white guys to a handful of other white guys, we have a new female senator in Massachusetts, a female disabled veteran elected to Congress,  and a second term African-American and White-American President. That's what brings tears to my eyes.

I hope this gives you some encouragement, my friends.