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I'm going to tell you a story. A few months ago I thought I would have to move to the US for work. I faced it. Tried to accept it.
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My feelings on this fluctuated with the election coverage. "Yay I want to live under president Clinton" and you know, terror.
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When relocation came up I would say I wouldn't move if Trump won and all these white dudes humoured me, joked that they would leave too.
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One of them told me all about his "crazy" relative who was going to vote trump and how they went out and got drunk together.
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Some of my friends told me how terrified they were. Some clearly thought I was experiencing British post-brexit paranoia.
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All day yesterday I kept thinking about how dearsarah told me, multiple times, "women and poc are the majority of the population."
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But I guess that doesn't matter if you disenfranchise enough of them. Although all these white women who voted for trump - wtf.
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Amazing to think that some women VOTED for trump who would probably (sensibly) refuse to be in a room alone with him.
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Anyway if I had moved to the US I would be arriving this week and that alternate reality hits me pretty hard.
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Would I actually have had the nerve to turn around and leave? Or would I be anxiously trying to make a temporary life until I got deported?
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Set that aside. Yesterday, I spoke to as many of my non-white-man American friends as I could and I heard some things that broke my heart.
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"My family didn't immigrate for this." Stays with me. "My family moved to the US on refugee status because of the holocaust." Haunts me.
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And my friends who are afraid and talking about leaving. You get to leave, if you want to, if you are lucky. You have no obligation to stay.
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I feel you. And I will help you, if I can.