Day 2,562: Don’t Talk Politics

This is not the place for politics.

Politics are best discussed calmly and rationally, and ended with agreeing to disagree. Better yet: don’t talk about politics full-stop. Nothing good ever comes from it. Everyone just needs to calm down, chill out, see the humanity in the other side, and go about our daily lives.

I’ve seen a lot of online posts to this effect over the past few days and weeks. It’s always from my cis, straight, white friends and family. And I have to tell you, white friends and family, that being married to a person of color has shown me a different reality; a reality where there is no luxury to just be calm, agree to disagree, and just get along.

To treat politics as though it is something that ‘other people fight about’ is privilege.

It is not OUR skin color or our sexuality or our heritage that is discriminated against, incarcerated, profiled, attacked, or judged. When that becomes your reality, politics are personal. They’re woven into the fabric of your very identity. Politics become a matter of survival, and they’re impossible to sweep aside and table on account of making someone else uncomfortable.

So, the next time you, my white friends and family—and I do sincerely love all of you—want to express frustration at how divided things have become in our country, I challenge you and beg of you to consider a different perspective, one that is threatened to the level of life and death when it comes to politics and elections. Consider a different reality from your own.

Do not be ignorant to the privilege that it is to live where being ‘political’ is a choice.

And watch this video. It says it all so much more personally and powerfully than I could ever express as an outsider looking in.