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“The pain, the violence, the tearing apart of brothers, the tearing apart of a nation. … Everyone can see it. This division, this tearing apart, is palpable, visible. It now surpasses politics. We are at a point of rupture.” These words by Patrice Michel Derenoncourt are cited by Edwidge Danticat in her book of essays, “We are Alone.”
Derenoncourt was talking about Haiti, but he could have been describing the United States as reflected in the violent, racist and misogynist rhetoric of the Trump campaign. But let’s heed James Baldwin: “A country is only as strong as the people who make it up and the country turns into what the people want it to become. Now, this country is going to be transformed. It will not be transformed by an act of God, but by all of us, by you and me.”
Vote. And get others to do the same.
Dawn Morais Webster
Hawaii Kai
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