Long story short. I told my brother about my anxiety over Trump and his potential 3rd additional pick for the Supreme Court. I said how I am worried that Trump will put some Right-wing Evangelical nutjob onto the Court and that it could lead to a stronger religious presence in our legal system. You know, the potential for more "religious freedom laws" being passed that will allow homophobic practices to become legal. Overturning gay marriage and abortion. Things like that.
My sister-in-law has a brother who is gay. My brother and his wife have not been able to conceive a child and want to look into adoption. She's somewhat Catholic and he is an Atheist. My brother is a Trump supporter, even though he says he thinks Trump is an idiot. I tried arguing that if Trump keeps getting his way, that I could see a future where the SCOTUS could agree that, if they are going to say businesses can deny service/employment to members of the LGBTQIA+ community, due to religious beliefs, then many adoption agencies, which are often run by religious groups, could also deny my brother the opportunity to adopt because he isn't a Christian.
My brother just scoffed and said that it was all just a bunch of fearmongering propaganda. This, like so many other concerns I have, are often seen as frivolous by most of the people in my life. I work with a lot of Trump supporters, many of whom are of the QAnon variety. I have immediate family members, who one minute say they aren't racist, but then go and casually use the N-word the next minute. My brother, being the worst offender, is all over the place when he talks.
Unfortunately, even though I can understand where he is coming from when he goes off on this diatribes of his I can't really defend much of what he's saying because of where he's coming from. I hear a lot of casual racism and conspiracy bullshit from people at work, but at least those are people I can hopefully one day remove from my life, if I find a different job. When it comes to my family though, I can't escape it. I can't really relate to most of my family, on things that I really feel the most passionately about. Even if I can find the nerve to make my opinions known, I feel like they just don't see where I am coming from and often will tell me I am wrong.
I just hate feeling like I have no outlet, nowhere I can go and be heard without either offending people or ultimately being written off as nuts.
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theviscokid:
I wish I could record the things I hear and see, just to provide evidence and help get some backup, proving I am not nuts.When I hear my boss say things like how he should convert to Judaism so whenever he doesn't get what he wants, he can claim people are being antiemetic towards him, or how he should marry a blonde-haired blue-eyed woman from Spain and then become a citizen of the country, so he can then come back to the US and be an immigrant, so everything will be just handed to him, or how he thinks that lesbians and feminists are trying to turn men into "soy boys" or just get rid of men altogether.Other coworkers who have joked about driving cars into protestors, by saying they want one of those shirts, depicting such a thing with the phrase, "All Lives Splatter." Or the coworkers who say that the blacks are outbreeding white people on the west coast. Or when they refer to our governor, (Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan) using derogatory and sexist terms. It's just about every day. My company is also run by Trump supporters. When we got our bonus checks last year, all the hourly employees' checks had a letter that specifically thanked Trump's tax breaks for the bonuses. However, back when Obama's re-election campaign was happening, the company sent out emails to employees, essentially telling them not to vote for Obama. The head of HR holds a bi-yearly meeting with all the employees and he always has to throw in Right-wing propaganda, especially during election years. I am dreading our next meeting in October, because I don't think I'll be able to keep my mouth shut and may end up losing my job when I tell the HR head that he's full of shit for telling us how good Trump is.Then, when talking to my family... My mom has said she hates anyone who isn't white. She especially hates anyone that is of any sort of Asian ethnicity. She said she'd disown me if I ever dated an Asian girl. My dad doesn't like biracial couples. He once said, of my adopted cousin from Ecuador, that she will never be a real part of the family. I've already touched on my brother and his quasi-White Nationalist views and borderline militia way of thinking. He gets so incredibly angry and worked up over things, but can be so dismissive of me when I get even half as mad about things. I got off of Facebook simply because I couldn't post a damn thing without getting flak from him or any other family. During the last SCOTUS nomination process, one of my distant rich prick cousins, who is super evangelical and a big Trump fan, joked that I should pray for RBG. He didn't think he'd be able to handle getting a third pick for the Court. I bet this smug prick probably cheered when the news of RBG's death came in.My sister, she doesn't really seem to follow much and she sometimes seems like she doesn't even care. However, she was jumping on the bandwagon with my brother yesterday. He was going off against BLM and black people in general. He kept saying he isn't racist, sexist, or homophobic, but he so clearly is. He kept using the N-word and saying he should have the right to say whatever he wants. My sister said she didn't understand why black people get to use it if it is so bad. Then, when my brother was talking about how he thinks white privilege is a joke, my sister complained that she has nothing and no help, but her next-door neighbors, comprised of a black woman with six kids, two of whom have kids of their own, and no father around, live in a bigger and brand-new trailer and have a nicer/newer car. She talked about how people are coming and going from the place at all hours of the night, staying for a few minutes at a time. Granted, yeah, there are some bullshit policies that reward people for making bad choices and perhaps many of these policies seem geared towards helping out minorities more than they do white people, but my sister has also had four different jobs this year and has never been good with her money. It's one of those situations where I can see where someone is coming from, when they say something. Yeah, it sucks that someone can keep having kids and collecting checks from the government, but a single person with no kids doesn't get anything, but, in my sister's case, she'd have more if she wasn't so flakey. I get her anger, but she's mad at the wrong people.My aunt and uncle, the ones who adopted a kid from Ecuador, are big-time Liberals. They are also quite well off, but they get assistance from the government, because they adopted a kid. I can see how that would piss most people off, seeing someone taking advantage of the system.But this is what I have learned. People are angry all over and it makes it almost impossible to get them to listen to anything, if what you are saying is going to challenge their worldview. That's how it is with my family and coworkers. I could try as fucking hard as I could to plead my case, but they won't hear it. I am probably the same way. I am sure there has to be something good about having Trump as President. There must be something positive in erasing the line separating church and state. I must be incredibly stupid and naïve to think that Democrats actually have the best intentions for the country. Why can't I just wake up and see that the Left wants to give the country away to anyone who walks in and has a kid? Why can't I see that the government wants to keep us all stupid, broke, and completely reliant upon them? It should be obvious that there is no difference between the Left or the Right. They're the same and they want to control us. Black helicopters with hooded shadow people, monitoring our every move. It's all a plot to make us a global society.That's what I mean about feeling hopeless after dealing with my family. From the way they talk, life is meaningless and nothing will ever change. I wonder if that is how most conspiracy theory people feel? Fuck, if that is really how most people see the world, we should all just kill ourselves. I know think about doing it every single fucking day.
nicola_swan:
I'm so sorry you have to deal with so much toxicity from family and coworkers. I'm in Canada so it's not the same situation, but I have some relatives who are racist and homophobic. I do believe that humanity is basically good, even if we're going through dark times and it can be hard to see the good sometimes. You matter and your presence in the world makes a difference! Don't give up!