Vote. But Keep Each Other Around.
I might catch flack from liberal friends for this…
If you didn’t vote for Biden, if you chose not to vote, or yes, even if you voted for Trump, I want you to know we’re still good.
I don’t need to take our discussion into a private message. I likely knew your political leanings before today, and you knew mine, and we cared about each other then. Politics governs the masses. I choose not to have it govern my individual relationships. For anything we humans disagree on, there’s only one guaranteed way for us to never understand each other, and that’s by never talking again.
It’s for the same reason why “moving out of the country” only serves the one doing the severing. Our social rifts, the humans who suffer, and our fears for our economy, family, and country persist whether any one person leaves the country or not. They persist whether we cut people out of our lives or not.
Exactly four years ago I founded a nonprofit to explore this experiment of connection beyond politics. Here’s the one thing I’ve learned: I know it’s important to be loud about the things we deeply care about. But balance out the proclamations with patience and compassion. The greatest thing I can do for the issues I care about is to keep you in my life, and for you to keep me in yours. For us to Listen for a Change.
That said, I can only say this because I am in a position that is mostly unaffected (thus far) by the consequences. I am not a woman, I am not a refugee, I am not Black, I am not Muslim, I am not trans, I am not many identities that are in a direct line of fire for merely existing. I can’t fault someone who is from or cares about these communities to cut someone out because they have, in turn, been cut first.
I find myself existing in an in between space. One that sits on a platform that speaks to many sides. And I will continue to use this position to to bring us all closer together. So even if you find it difficult to back the sentiment of this post today, help me and my team do that which others cannot.
Thai Chu
Founder, Listen for a Change
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