I get it. But you are wrong.
(An open letter to Vice President Vance)
I get it. You think that my welcoming of minorities to share power – be it academic, scientific, political or financial – is self serving. I get that you don’t buy into the idea that their lived experiences are as valid as their test score on the biased tests you invented.
I get it. You abhor the thought of acknowledging that gays are ok and it is ok for them to pair up for a life of companionship and love in marriage. I get that your narrow interpretation of your faith tells you that to exclude gays is ok.
I get it. I get it that you can’t stand the thought of your children being exposed to critical thinking. I get that you don’t want them forming their own conscience by getting an education that includes a broad range of topics and access to different political and social thinking.
I get it. I get it that to you “out of sight is out of mind”. I get it that since it may not impact you immediately and directly you don’t care if millions of poor people die of hunger and disease because our government won’t fund relief services. I get it that to you that is not the role of the government.
I get it. I get it that you place perceived personal safety above all else. I get it that if that means the government skirts due process and mercilessly sends people to foreign gulags that’s ok with you.
I get it. I get that to you life in the womb is sacred and women have to be coerced into giving birth. Yet you refuse to help them during pregnancy and you are ok with decimating Medicaid, which pays for over 40% of all births in the USA.
I get that it’s all about you, your personal “salvation” and your need to force others to join your tribe.
I get it.
And I so vehemently disagree with you.
I wish I had the patience to listen to your stories, understand your perceived pain, relate to your sense of victimhood. Well, it seems I don’t. And it seems you don’t care to reach out to the likes of me either. It seems you don’t care to hear our stories, feel our pain, or get our point of view. But hey, it ain’t about us. Frankly, we are fine, thank you. It seems we are irrevocably miles apart.
It seems you have no empathy for the folks we care about: the unhoused in our neighborhood, the struggling in our community, the shut-ins in our town, the farmworkers in our state, the factory workers in our country, the poor in Africa, the displaced in Gaza, the suffering in Ukraine, the dying in the DRC and Haiti. Out of sight out of mind. Let them die, I hear you say. I hear you say it ain’t your problem or that you have your own problems and can’t care or much less help.
Oh, but I see you are praying. And to that I say “prayer without action is self serving platitude”. Frankly, it seems your Jesus ain’t my Jesus.
Believe you me I get it.
But I am humbled knowing that I have been blessed to have lived a life alongside people that gave their lives for the good of the collective, in solidarity with the pain of others, and accompanying the destitute and discarded. And I ain’t about to grow old watching you dismantle decades of human progress driven by compassion, welcoming all, and caring for the poor. And thus I will continue fighting, protesting, writing, – and yes, praying.