Jackson Free Press

For the last few years, I have attended the TEDxJackson conferences. It had been a dream of mine for years to see one in person, and I was incredibly excited the first time I got the opportunity.

This most recent event was different though, both in size and message. I was particularly excited because this year was TEDxJacksonWomen, and the title of it was "It's About Time." It focused on the time and attention demanded of women and was also kind of a call-to-action for us to get to work to change the way the world views women of all races.

The event featured local Jackson speakers such as Cherita Brent, former Mississippi Youth Media Project participant Maisie Brown (who helped write this issue's cover story), and Julie Kuklinski, who is the program director of the Moore Community House Women in Construction program on the coast. It was also simulcasted with the TEDWomen conference in San Francisco. That means that along with the local speakers, we also heard from women around the world such as British comedian and activist Sandi Toksvig.

With the current political turmoil, I'm glad I got to attend TEDxJacksonWomen. It was a bright spot in the midst of a hairy election cycle, and now it can be a bright spot in what can sometimes feel like impending doom.

On election night, I attended a watch party, but then when I began to get irritated with the results, I decided to go to McDade's 10 minutes before close so I could get some beef to make Japanese curry. It was, at the very least, something to keep my mind off the anxiety looming just beneath the surface.

Back home, I tried not to refresh the results. I tried not to think about it, to just finish prepping the ingredients. I went to sleep and tried not to think about it, and I hoped beyond hope that what I feared wouldn't come true.

But it did. The next day was a weird day that sort of felt like the early part of a nightmare. But the day after that, life started getting back to normal.

That doesn't mean it is completely normal, though.

The fear in people's hearts isn't normal. The day after the election, I broke down after a LGBT friend told me that she is terrified. I didn't know what else to say, so I said what I felt was true: "Me too. We can be scared together."

It wasn't the most helpful thing to say, but all I could think is that at least we're not alone in the fact that we're afraid. It's not just one person who is scared. It is a whole bunch: women, some men, people of color, immigrants, Muslims, Jews, even children. They are all afraid of what could happen should Trump end up building walls, or deporting undocumented immigrants, or taking away women's reproductive rights, or making life harder for the LGBT community.

Trump has said that he wouldn't undo the U.S. Supreme Court's Obergefell v. Hodges ruling that legalized same-sex marriage—at least for now—so that's one hopeful spot. Still, justices he promises to appoint to overturn Roe v. Wade just may turn back Obergefell, too.

I think two questions are on everyone's minds: 1. What is actually going to happen when Trump becomes president? (It's not looking good so far), and 2. Where do we go from here?

I don't know the answer to either of those questions, and I wish I did. But I do know one thing: This isn't the end of the line for women or people of color or the LGBT community or any other marginalized part of the nation.

In the turmoil of the election, some major bright spots came out: For the first time in the history of the U.S., an openly LGBT governor came to power when Oregon elected Kate Brown; Ilhan Omar became the first Somali-American legislator when she was elected to the House of Representatives; wounded and progressive veteran Tammy Duckworth is taking the Illinois Senate seat Barack Obama once held; Catherine Cortez Masto became the first Latina U.S. senator.

On the other hand, hate crimes have increased exponentially. Between Nov. 9 and Nov. 16, the Southern Poverty Law Center counted more than 700.

Bad people have taken Trump's election to mean that they can scrawl hate speech on a bathroom wall, or pull up to people at a gas station and tell someone to go back to their country (even though the person has probably lived here for their entire lives), or threaten to set a Michigan student on fire if she didn't remove her hijab. (She did.)

So in the words of The Strokes, we took "two steps forward and three steps back." But it's a starting place, at least. We're in a position now to open up the dialogue about freedom and what it means to be an American, what it means to treat all people with respect, no matter their gender or sexual orientation or where they come from.

While I would have loved to have a woman president (yes, a small part of the reason I voted for her is because we have the same sex chromosomes), and I hate to say this, but we might need a bad situation like this to figure out how to move forward, and how to do it together.

If this post-election environment has taught me anything, it is that we all need to hug each other a little more (but please ask before you hug me) and be there for each other.

If we're going to be able to fight the good fight, to fight for justice and equality and an equitable world, we're going to have to do it together.

And who knows? Maybe 2020 will finally be a woman's time to shine.

Assistant Editor Amber Helsel's alter ego is Umaru Doma. Some call her the Demon Lady of Food (not really, but she wouldn't object to it). She likes to cook, eat, make art and pet cats. Email story ideas to [email protected].