(Searching for) My Bread and Roses

My experience of the most recent US election was so vastly different from any previous one I had lived to witness. 

There are more than a few reasons contributing to this, with the two most notable factors being that it was the first election where I was able to vote, and ironically, the first election wherein I was no longer living in the country itself. 

After years of fighting through the unforgiving, unempathetic, soul-crushing United States Naturalization Process - first to acquire my green card and renew it onceover, as well as applying for my citizenship - my American passport was given to me about a year before the 2024 general election, and approximately 2 weeks before I would be relocating to the United Kingdom for the foreseeable future. 

So I was able to vote for the first time, sending my mail-in ballot by unceremoniously throwing it in the mailbox, not even stopping to hear it land at the bottom of the pile of other letters in order to make it to work on time. 

While I was looking forward to voting, and proud of having finally acquired this right and responsibility after such a long time, it was of course undercut by many doubts. I was a registered democratic voter in a blue state: did my vote even matter at all? My vote was a cry into the void. I wasn’t even really enthusiastic about my candidate. As far as I was concerned, Kamala Harris was the lesser of two evils.

The consequences of these choices would impact the entire world. The United States is the epicenter of an earthquake the rest of the world has no choice but to crouch down and endure (or if they are able to, deny that it is occurring at all) as the waves of destabilization and destruction permeate. However, no longer being on American soil made the changes feel like surgery on a body under anaesthesia. These votes were no longer impacting my body, my family, or my immediate environment, which was a distinct difference from my experience growing up. In some ways, though I knew in my head it wasn't true, the election felt like it might as well have been on a different planet. 

To reinforce this sensation, approaching election night I was even further away from the action, as I was in Japan. Far away from everything that was familiar to me, I had the space to reflect about the event like a child observing fish in an aquarium, which was strange, as I had spent the better part of my life swimming in circles in the murky water.

On November 6th, from 11 am Japan Standard Time, on a bullet train from Osaka to Hiroshima, I refreshed my phone browser to observe the map steadily filling with color. 

The only thing that gave me a sense of relief as red started to bleed through the borders is that I had been largely spared from the deafening, inane commentary that is constantly being projected on every screen available in America. This was the first election I could observe without the incessant media coverage. Of course I have a strong desire to stay informed. But the strongly biased and targeted way the news is disseminated in America, the fear mongering, the dog whistles, the obvious revisionism and dramatic hyperboles. The constant reinterpretation of the facts, reality, what is actually happening, into webs of misinformation so vast and intricate it’s impossible to disentangle them from the truth, I can only describe as the largest waste of precious air so vile, I can not stand to listen to it. Despite the guilt of not being where I thought I should have been, in the heart of it with the people I care for, I was happy to escape from all of that noise.

So the electoral votes climbed on my phone throughout the day, each state coming alive with color completely indifferent to my, or anyone else's feelings.

By the time I reached Hiroshima, Trump still had a considerable lead in the race, and Kamala was losing the swing states fast. It was not looking good. Hours before the race was called, I already knew who was going to win, but I let it sit unprocessed at the back of my mind. 

When I arrived at my hostel in Hiroshima, the first person I met - or heard, rather - was a man telling a story to the rest of the room with an air of over exaggeration. Despite being both short and small, he still managed to take up the entire sofa by stretching out his sunburnt arms, stretching out his legs crossed at the ankles. He wasn’t yelling, but somehow his voice took over the entire room. You couldn’t avoid listening to him.

“Which state are you from?” I asked, recognizing his accent. Even without the rolling r's and elongated vowels, the volume gave it away. When I spoke in an American accent, my voice carried in a way it could never do in another language.

“It’s not important.” He said dismissively, but he was smiling the uncomfortable smile that most people over the age of thirty adopt. The ‘Unthreatening Millennial’ mask. “What about you?”

“London, originally.” I recited. I had a choice here. I could keep my false sense of European superiority, or I could extend an olive branch. “But I was raised in San Francisco.”

“Yeah, I'm pretty sure I know which way this is gonna go,” He said with confidence, as if the map wasn't 60% red at this very moment and climbing fast. “But luckily you and I don’t have to worry about that.”

He had said it so flippantly I couldn’t come up with a response. Not because he had said anything particularly transgressive, but because I was genuinely confused at what had compelled him to so easily include us together in a sentiment that was neither accurate nor conceivable. 

“Why do you say that?” I had learned it is always more worthwhile to ask a question before speaking my immediate dissent – although, I had to admit I did harbor judgment towards him. His attitude gave the impression he had never worried about a thing in his life solely because he believed to foresee everything before it happened.

“You have double citizenship,” He began to explain to me in a matter-of-fact tone, “and I own property in a couple European countries. We can both disappear and wait this out. We don’t need to get involved in all of that.”

Whether it was the long hours of travel or the events of the past day, I struggled to even begin to find a response. I could barely wrap my head around the fact that he thought being in possession of a passport was the same as having purchased real estate over a decade ago in the aftermath of the economic crisis that ruined most people’s lives. That was before I could even start on the fact that he genuinely believed that we could:

1. Disappear from the country and avoid the impact it would have on the entire world politically, economically, and socially, 

2. Wait out the rise of political turmoil that was rapidly turning one of the most influential countries into a fascist police state holding the world hostage with military power run by ignorant, egotistical billionaires with fragile senses of masculinity and a proclivity for exploitation,

3. Remain perfectly at peace with everything happening around us with no remorse for those at risk as long as we are not in harms way. As if we weren't at that very moment standing in a historic sight of one of the most horrific war crimes America has committed against another country. As if the revoking of human rights while we ignorantly stand by and gawk is okay as long as we saying to anyone who will listen that, "It's really such a shame," and, "Someone should really do something about that."

   
   

Maybe I should have been stronger. Maybe I should have argued. Maybe I should have tried to have a conversation, pushed his understanding a little bit.

Looking at his sunburned face, devoid of any worry or anxiety, I knew that his benign self-importance was only the tip of the iceberg of what was to come. The worst hasn't even come to pass yet and people were already looking away, squeamish about witnessing the worst parts of their society rear their heads. Defeated by this overwhelming blindness, I couldn't even believe that anything I could come up with would make a difference.

“I don’t think that’s how that works.” I said, lamely. And I left it at that.

As the counting of the votes came to a close, I witnessed the sun setting behind the Atomic Dome in Hiroshima.

---

My reaction to the most recent election is very different to the one Trump's first election eight years ago inspired. I was fourteen at the time, struggling through the depths of the transition between adolescence and young adulthood. This period of time is already defined most heavily by feelings of disempowerment, confusion, and an intense need to define oneself. This period of my personal journey coincided with an international movement towards addressing centuries of injustice, holding centers of power accountable, and a generation of new language to talk about disenfranchisement and injustice. My involvement in leftist politics at the time was a way to make sense of myself. My growth into adulthood was intensely intertwined with global conflicts, culminating in my 18th birthday, quickly followed by the breakout of the COVID-19 pandemic, the BLM protests, and the end of Trump’s first term. When I legally became an adult the world was standing still. 

Just like the activity within the democratic party (which I am staunchly yet reluctantly attached to), I feel like the engagement from many communities plateaued. It could have been because the pandemic and all the problems it dredged up affected many people's ability to organize, or because the privilege of certain people's positions allowed them to drop their act for a moment. Just like the political party itself, I felt isolated, disempowered, lost, uninspired. My dedication to activism work, which was a core part of my identity from the ages of 14-18, dissipated until it was nothing but the remnants of guilty feelings that left a sinking pit of nausea within me. Throughout the end of my teen years and my early twenties, despite my efforts, I couldn’t help but feel like anything I attempted was doomed to fail, or worse, fade into irrelevance. 

However, now, like eight years ago, I feel inclined to move out of my petrification. Perhaps it is moving through the awful loss of one’s childhood and the naive perspective that clouds it. Perhaps it is the fact that the sense of urgency has become prevalent enough to break through even the deepest of dissociative states. Regardless, I now turn to writing and publishing my perspectives as an act of solace and rebellion. As a way to make sense of the chaos we are navigating through. 

Unlike eight years ago, I have a much larger community, many more resources, and knowledge of ideologies I am much more aligned with politically and socially.

The most prevalent emotion I have from the past four years of depression is regret. Regret at not doing enough, regret at not writing more, not reaching out, not creating more art, not expressing my emotions, not seeking love and community, not providing strength to those in need. Regret is a wasted emotion. It’s just a reminder of all the opportunities I had in front of me that I didn’t take. 

There is nothing I lose by sharing my writing, but I sacrifice everything by remaining silent.

As I am approaching the end of the month, I am realizing that it is time to come to terms with reality as it is. Instead of dissociating or giving in to defeatism, I am beginning to spend more energy on reflecting on what I am capable of doing from here. 

This was abundantly clear when I was listening to the post-election episode of the podcast, How to Survive the End of the World. This podcast is a guide for me when it comes to navigating my socio-political dilemmas. It is hosted by adrienne maree brown (who, if you have read the rest of the content on this website, you will recognize as a big inspiration to my work) and her sister autumn brown, as they discuss movement, politics, and how to radically organize with awareness and compassion. In this particular episode, amb was interviewing Nelini Stamp, the National Organizing Director at the Working Families Party and avid musician and singer. They reflect on their post-election feelings and Nelini answers the revealing line of questioning: what time is it now? What is it time to act on? What is it time to do? What must we now confront in order to move forward through difficult times?

This was a refreshing discussion to listen to and it has helped me break out of my political activism slump of the past few years. There are a couple specific points in the episode I want to highlight here that are going to remain firmly in my mind when it comes to my personal work in the future and re-engaging with activism with a new perspective and new intentions. 

One of the first points made by amb, is the immediate vitriol and violence in public spaces and public discourse that can proliferate in the wake of an event like the recent election. 

“I’ve been so sad to watch people be like, immediate ‘fuck you’. You are conditioned to feel ‘fuck you’ to that person, and the most radical thing you can do is to pull back and ask, why are you, you? Why are you making choices like this? And here’s why I’m making choices like this. Being able to get under the stories of oppressors. The stories of the elite that love to see us turning on each other.”

- How to Survive the End of the World podcast, "post election time with Nelini Stamp", 00:09:55

Immediate distrust and hatred towards those with differing views is a reflex that has been easily trained and put into practice on both sides of the political spectrum. It is partially the fault of fear mongering in the media and the press, as well as the explicit scapegoating of specific marginalized groups. However, it is also due to the natural need to have someone to blame for misfortune or tragedy, especially when it is to such a high degree as to negatively impact entire communities of people. 

In How to Survive the End of the World, amb suggests that the most radical thing to do in response to that instinct is to question it, and to seek to understand the group that we are attempting to blame. This way, we can transcend the stereotypical narratives that are imposed upon us, which ultimately only serve to further alienate each other. A good question I have found always yields interesting results, is to ask myself, “who does this narrative benefit?”

It is unpopular in certain activist groups to suggest this because it can be interpreted as ‘turning the other cheek’. If you listen to the opposing side, you are lending validity to their claims and you are therefore aiding them in their attempt to spread malevolence and hatred. However, seeking to understand with the goal to hold the other accountable is a far cry from validating their claims. Just because you don’t aggressively dissent outright doesn’t mean that you are aiding them in spreading harmful beliefs. It is only a more compassionate way to try and engage in certain discussions that could potentially have a more radical end. 

This leads to an ongoing problem in leftist spaces that I believe has led to the fragmentation we see today. We are so incredibly divided in the way we want to handle and solve problems that it becomes impossible to even engage in a conversation without one’s entire personhood being questioned. If we are constantly debating everyone’s belief in the cause, we are never going to make the political strides that could be accomplished to benefit everyone, especially the most marginalized groups, who are often unable to participate in the ideological hair splitting competitions that take place in many leftist debates.

This leads to the second important point I want to highlight. As amb and Nelini explain in the episode, the reason the right has grown to be so powerful in the past decade is because they are bound together by shared values and culture. They are not debating among themselves who is more devoted to the cause or who is most educated on certain topics. If they have even slightly similar opinions, even as broad and as vague as ‘Make America Great Again’, they find companionship within that. They are not asking each other how they want America to become great again, they’re not even asking each other what that looks like. It’s an idea, it’s a sentiment, it’s a shared desire. And that makes their political bonds much stronger than those on the left could ever be at this stage.

To explain this further, Nelini references a poem that was originally brought to popularity within the women’s suffrage movement, where American workers' rights activist Helen Todd is quoted as saying: 

“But woman is the mothering element in the world and her vote will go toward helping forward the time when life's Bread, which is home, shelter and security, and the Roses of life, music, education, nature and books, shall be the heritage of every child that is born in the country, in the government of which she has a voice.”

While she is discussing the issue of women’s labor rights, the sentiment could be applied to almost any movement. When people are protesting, they are not only protesting for human rights, the right to be safe, the right to be fed, the right to be healed when injured or sick. They are protesting for what humans deserve. Humans deserve to gather and celebrate however they choose. Humans deserve to show love and be loved by whoever they desire. Humans deserve to have access to beautiful art, witness incredible stories, perform from the heart and be heard. 

“We want our Bread and Roses too.” amb and Nelini say together.

Unity in the face of tragedy is deeply necessary. But it should not eclipse the human need to unite for joy, pride, and celebration. We have to unite around a shared cultural desire. 

Poster for American Suffragette lecture with Rose Schneidermann, who was inspired by Helen Todd and further proliferated the 'Bread and Roses' rhetoric (1912)

---

When it comes to pursuing and co-creating in this shared cultural desire, I refuse to engage in discourse on social media. I cannot engage in a space where language is distorted, where only the most controversial, revenue accruing opinions are shown or highlighted, and everyone is divided in their own independently generated algorithms. But I can’t simply not engage. I don’t want to be – I can’t be – like that sunburnt man who is probably still running around East Asia right now, believing he can hibernate through the events taking place today, and avoid the consequences that impact us all. 

So the goal is to engage more in this personal space where I am able to define the terms of the discussion, by establishing a space for my language and my thoughts, and by creating a space where complex, multifaceted ideas can exist. 

I refuse to accept the pessimist's prayer that nothing can be improved, where nothing will change except to become worse. I refuse to sink into a depression where even putting pen to paper is dismissed as a useless pursuit. I refuse to accept that any attempt at community, however small, is a shameful act.

I refuse to accept that I cannot have my Bread and my Roses too. 

---

References

• "post election time with Nelini Stamp", How to Survive the End of the World podcast, 25/09/2024, https://endoftheworldshow.org/episodes/post-election-time-with-nelini-stamp

• "Bread and Roses", The American Magazine, 1911

• Rose Schneidermann suffragette poster, Robert F. Wagner Archives, 1912