Here's Why This Lesbian Knows That Our Only Choice Now Is To Rise

All the hate and backwardness and ignorance that we had hoped was behind us. It was still there. It has been there all along. Trump didn't create the hate. He illuminated it.
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This is not the death knell. This is the rallying call. This sheds light on all the work we still need to do. All the hate and backwardness and ignorance that we had hoped was behind us. It was still there. It has been there all along. Trump didn't create the hate. He illuminated it. And, yes, sadly, he emboldened it, bringing us as a nation to an all-time low.

But, you know, my father always says -- People won't change until they hit their rock bottom. Not rock bottom. THEIR rock bottom.

Had Hillary won, which I so desperately longed for and prayed for and pulsed for, I would have thought -- we did it. We made it. We won. But the truth is we have so much work to do. So many people are poor and lost and under-educated and angry and disenfranchised. It is not us and them. They are us. We are us.

So I am sad that the universe did not believe that we had reached our rock bottom. Our collective rock bottom.

But this, my friends, this is it. This is rock bottom. Hate found its way into public office.

And now, now, we will make the change.

We will love harder. We will educate more. We will vigilantly stand for one another. We will not allow him to define us. He will mark the end of hate. Not the beginning. We will hold him accountable. We will call him out. We will remind him who he works for -- us.

What we will not do is blindly accept. What we will not do is turn a blind eye. What we will not do is run or hide.

If they come for one of us -- They will have to go through all of us.

Our story will NOT be they came for the Jews and I said nothing. They came for the Mexicans and I said nothing. They came for the Muslims and I said nothing. They came for the African Americans and I said nothing. And then they came for me and there was no one left to speak for me.

No.

They come for one of us and they will have to go through all of us.

We will constantly remind Donald Trump that he works for us now. He answers to us. And I don't know about you. But I am a cruel mistress. There will be no hate on my watch. He will act with dignity and respect. And should he decide to act against humanity, we will join and we will fight in the name of love and in the name of all that is true and right.

He works for us. Women are his boss now. The LGBTQ community is his boss now. The African American community is his boss now. The Muslims. The Jews. The Disabled. He works for us and he will serve us.

And, should he choose not to, he better brace himself. He knows not the rage of people who have fought for their very existence.

We will watch him. All of us. We. Will. Watch.

But for now...

Now we will come together. Now we stand together. Now we show him and all the world that love is love is love is love.

And love always wins.

Take care of yourselves and each other. And get ready. Things look bad, which can only mean one thing -- it's time to rise.

And we will rise. We will rise. We will rise.

[Written for and presented to the Ladies of Olivia for "The Gathering" held in Ixtapa, MX during the 2016 Ixtapa, Mexico Resort Trip.]

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