Election Aftermath & Australia's Own Backyard

If you're here: hey Instagram followers. I'm going to blog (again but you wouldn't know that). My captions were getting too long - and I can't promise I'll dedicate the time to this that makes a good blog run, but I don't think I can just stay in fandom mode. I'm barely in one at the moment, so it's time to branch out. Expect lots of contemplation, personal posts and potentially random thoughts. If you want full disclosure, I have republished some old pieces. Scroll down if you want to read what 16 year old me thought of the world.

You know what I wanted to do post-election (under the assumption that Clinton would win)? I wanted to be proud of Hillary Clinton. I wanted to still call out its hollow victory given her opponent and I wanted to discuss how she'll continue to cop it. I wanted to take a second and breathe – to not glue myself to FiveThirtyEight.com, to not read another barrage of hate comments directed at Hillary Clinton (naïve me honestly thought the hate would magically reduce itself by 50% if she won). I wanted to reinvest my time away from an election which is 17+ hours away by airplane – and focus on my personal life, my television shows and how I could invest myself to make Australia a better place). I wanted to wake up on November 10 (timezones), and hear stories about little kids seeing that they could be anything they wanted as long as they worked hard. I knew no fight was over – not when I’ve seen firsthand how vilified Julia Gillard (Australia’s first PM) was in her role. I know racism, xenophobia, sexism, misogyny and white supremacy was real – because really, how else does someone like Donald Trump even end up where he did without an ounce of experience? – but I needed to know that Love could trump Hate.

I needed to know that people saw this ‘game’ had gone far enough. I needed to believe that people could stand in solidarity for long enough to say it’s NOT fucking okay that people used Trump to spew hate, to abuse their peers based on their religion, sex, gender, sexuality or the colour of their skin. But right now – all I feel is sadness and all I see is horror (take a glance and @ShaunKing and @UnderratedAsian on Twitter for just a few examples). I know I’m not an American citizen and I’m not at risk at losing my healthcare, or the right to control my body – but this result has resulted in seismic shift inside me. How many people in this world hated so much but only now feel they can act on the urge to discriminate, to abuse, to kill because Trump is in power? For me personally (I don’t want to speak for anyone else): this fear needs to drive me. It needs to make me want action. It’s fair to want to shrink away – seriously I feel like I have internalised so much of the hatred. I find it hard to explain how much this entire election has made me reevaluate my identity. There are things I don’t discuss, because they have always been the ‘least interesting thing about me’ – but Trump’s brand has created a monster in that I hate myself for things I haven’t confirmed. I don’t really wanna go into detail here, so moving right along:

If you’re an Australian resident, here’s something you need to know. Australia’s House of Representatives has just passed a Life Time Ban on Visas bill. It aims to bar anyone who attempted to seek asylum by boat after July 2013 from ever getting an Australian visa (tourist, PR, you name it). Wanna know what to do? Read this. (It’s not my post.) I've - and many others - have sent emails to the crossbenchers as Australian residents. We need to learn from the election of Trump. Because things don't get better in silence.


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