Radical Kindness

There was a blissful, ignorant moment on the morning of November 6th in which I forgot about the election. My alarm went off, I checked the time, and hit snooze like always. I rolled over for a brief moment of bliss, and then, I remembered. The results would be in. 

I rolled over and opened my phone to two texts from my mom. One was who I drew in our annual sibling Christmas exchange, and the other was, “And I’m so sorry we suck as a country. I am devasted. I can’t sleep.” 

That’s how I knew it was over. I went to Google. I saw the numbers. I saw Michigan turning red. And I knew that was it. America chose hatred, bigotry, and violence over the first female president of the United States. 

Again. 

I had a good, full-body cry. The agonizing kind of cry that twists your forehead into knots and leaves your body crumpled in a fetal position. I hadn’t expected it to be over so quickly. I thought we would have to wait for days to know the results like in 2020. I never expected a repeat of going to bed in 2016, thinking America was going to have our first female president only to find we chose the epitome of white male privilege over a well-educated woman once again. 

Bring on your justifications for why you voted red or why you didn’t vote at all. Seriously, bring them on. Because for every one of your arguments, I promise you that I can do you one better. Whether you want to hear it or not, Trump stands for bigotry and hate. He stands for everything wrong with America. Even his economic plan was criticized by 16 Nobel Prize-winning economists. He is the picture of white privilege. A rich, white man who is a convicted criminal and rapist who was still allowed to run for president and win. 

The world had its eyes on us November 5th, and we failed. Even my twelve-year-old Spanish students know that we failed. That’s how great the United States’ impact is. A twelve-year-old all the way across the Atlantic knew the first and last names of the two candidates running. Do you know who the prime minister of Spain is? Probably not. If you do, would you have known who they were when you were twelve? Would you have known the leader of their opposing party? The date of the election? I certainly wouldn’t have. 

Ignorance is a uniquely American privilege. 

Our votes impact more than just ourselves. More than just our families. More than the unborn fetuses whose lives we think we are saving. They impact lives abroad. Lives at war. This week, after expressing their sympathy and disbelief, most Spaniards have brought up Trump leaving NATO. What will happen to Europe and the Ukraine without the threat of the United States keeping Russia at bay? 

The world is worried. The world is disappointed. And it should be. Why aren’t the 70 million Americans who voted for Trump? 

It’s hard to comprehend. Even though I am writing this, I still have no words. Why does my country love to hate this much? While I have been and always will be a proud Democrat (my first memory of a presidential election is “voting” for Obama as a second grader in 2008), I wouldn’t care if we elected a respectable Republican. Someone with credentials. Who has spent time working as a civil servant, held office, and worked in the Senate. Why did we deny a woman who had these credentials the honor of continuing to serve our great nation? I fear it was because she was a woman. Specifically, a woman of color. She could never run our country. Her laugh is too much. She wouldn’t be strong enough to represent us abroad. As an American living abroad, I can promise you that, Harris would have certainly done a better job of preserving our international reputation. 

It’s hard to be back here. Impossible almost. Eight years later. Gearing up to fight again. I’m much more tired than I was in 2016. Back then, I was learning about the world for the first time. I was discovering Model UN and international politics. Now, I teach the program to over 150 schools across the Comunidad de Madrid. 

In 2016, my family had just moved to Michigan. That year at Forest Hills Central High School I realized how many Americans, including my peers, believed that I didn’t deserve the right to control my own body. That my government knew better. That God knew better. That they—men who will never know what it feels like to wake up and panic that your period is late—knew better. I remember fighting boys in the year above me at a political debate club after school. What am I supposed to do if I do have the baby? What if I don’t have the money to care for it? What do we do to fix the adoption and foster care systems? They had no answers. Of course, they didn’t. Because it was never about saving the hypothetical clump of cells. It was about control. It was about the threat my very presence posed to the patriarchal world they wanted to enjoy. Because their fathers had. And their fathers before them.  It’s embarrassing to be so insecure about your future that you’d rather go 300 years into the past. To a world where slavery is legal and women are an extension of a man’s property. It’s sad, honestly, to be so disillusioned with reality that you are blind to the fact that equality and togetherness make our world a better place. 

Behind my anger and disappointment is a feeling of genuine sadness for anyone who can’t fathom how unfortunate this is. For the environment. For the globe. For your neighbor, your sister, your wife, your daughter, your granddaughter. For the children protected under DACA who walked for months through dangerous jungles to seek refuge from political horrors in our once great nation. I genuinely feel sorry. I feel sorry for the white women who voted to die in delivery rooms or as they’re miscarrying on the bathroom floor. I feel sorry for the young men who don’t see a place for themselves in society outside of the Twitter vortexes of Elon Musk and Andrew Tate. I feel sorry for everyone who chooses hate over love. I feel sorry for all of the young boys who thought it was okay to walk into school this week and tell their female classmates, “Your body, my choice.” (Yes, that really happened.) 

I’m sorry because it means that our society, our education systems, our communities, and even our churches have failed you. They have allowed you to fall for his violent rhetoric, to choose hatred over love, a criminal over a prosecutor, to believe in a man over a woman. 

My emotional reaction to the outcome of this election is not uncalled for. It is not rude or sowing division. The division was already there, and you voted for it. My emotions are my power. Our power. They are rooted in the immense empathy I am capable of feeling for those around me. For friends, family, and for strangers.

In the coming years, I believe that empathy will become our greatest strength, and it will be the only cure. We must enjoy the books that will be banned, so we can share the memories of them later. We must share our stories with each other. We must do our best to listen and understand. We must find community and expand it. Share your light with those around you. Even with those who are not yet ready to accept it. If this election has shown us anything, it has shown that they are the ones who need it most. Hurt people hurt people, and Trump’s victory shows that over 70 million people chose to go to the polls and tell us that they are radically hurting. 

I realize that it is difficult to look at someone who you feel hates you and choose to be kind. But I can assure you that it is not an impossible act, and I can also assure you that kindness can heal. 

The vitriol I see in Trump’s base reminds me of my students. They can be so angry. Angry at life, their parents, the system. Angry at me for making them open their English notebook and take out a pen. Last year, I decided that when faced with their anger, their hormones, their bad day, I would always react with kindness, empathy, and understanding. I would acknowledge where they are coming from. The home lives that made them think it is okay to speak to a woman this way. And I would be sorry for them. Because their lives deserve to be so much greater than the circumstances that raised them. 

When I was a student myself, struggling with mean girls at school, my mom would always tell me to “kill them with kindness,” and that is what I do. You would be surprised how well it works. How it breaks down students’ walls and makes them realize that my kindness means I care. Everyone just needs one person to care about them, and as an educator, nothing is more important to me than being that person for your students. 

The statistics that are coming out after the election say a lot. Those with the least education voted for Trump. As a kid, I knew my teachers were important. They were some of the first people to tell me I was a great writer, to encourage me to reach my goals. Today, they are still those people, writing me letters of recommendation, so I can continue my educational journey. Becoming an educator myself in the last two years has made me realize how important being a good teacher is. How being kind to your worst student can lead to positive change. 

Last year, I struggled with a girl in one of my classes. She was repeating the year and never came to class. She refused to participate on the days that she did show up. Her head was always down. Her backpack always stayed on her desk. Most teachers had given up on her, but I started saying hello to her, addressing her by name to ask how her day was going. Sometimes she would respond. Sometimes she would not. 

Things changed in December when we were doing our school’s mock Global Classrooms conference. Because of her attendance record, we hadn’t paired her with another student, but she showed up ready to represent the country she had been assigned. There she was, speaking English, giving speeches, collaborating with her peers. And passionately, I might add. I was so proud of her. 

That was the beginning. Her attendance increased. She integrated into a group of friends. I caught her laughing in the hallway. Suddenly, she started to confide in me. She invited me to her pueblo—the highest compliment a Spaniard can give. And she even made up a song about how one time I let her class watch Phineas and Ferb. 

This year, she comes to class every day. There are still difficult days when she is angry and lashes out. It’s on those days that I remember my mantra: it’s not about me. It’s about circumstances I will never know about. 

We have a little bond. She pays attention on the days I teach class. She is more comfortable asking me questions than the real teacher. Seeing her change is so gratifying. I won’t take credit for it. I believe that change must come from inside ourselves, but I’m happy to have treated her with kindness when she was at her lowest. 

This year, I’m working on a new group of students who come from immigrant families in South America. Venezuela, Nicaragua, Columbia. I can tell that they are not bad kids. They are simply overwhelmed, and once I understood their backgrounds, I could not blame them. New country. New school. Since they are new, they have a low level of English. They get confused easily when I talk to them, which doesn’t mix well with a TikTok or Instagram Reel short attention span. While many teachers have given up on them due to their behavior and them being “too far behind in school,” I’m making it my mission to believe in them and kill them with kindness. And, of course, it’s working. Kindness is a powerful tool. 

Last class, the students were working in groups, and their group was unfocused. One student had her head on her desk and her hood up. Another was on his phone. And the last was walking around the room being disruptive. I took a deep breath and decided that today was the day to win them over. I sat down at their desks and told them that if they did the activity in English, they could ask me whatever they wanted in Spanish. (Kids love this bargain.) Naturally, because they are teenagers and I am their lame English assistant, they shook their heads in refusal. But I stayed. 

I complimented the girl’s Hello Kitty phone case. I asked them about their favorite songs. And suddenly, it was working. I was wearing their headphones, listening to their favorite songs, getting educated on what I imagined to be the Nicaraguan equivalent of “Sweet Caroline,” which I played for them next. Then, the girl typed, “If we speak to you in English and you speak to us in Spanish, then we can learn from each other,” into Google Translate, and I was like yes! Exactly! I mean I had already told them that earlier, but it’s never as simple as just explaining to someone what’s right, what will benefit them the most. You have to win them over with radical kindness, and they have to be open to realizing the truth themselves.

Let me promise you that if you are choosing hate, you are missing out. Life is so much more beautiful when the glass is half full, when we embrace our differences and allow ourselves to learn from them. 

And if you’re already here, I ask you to hold onto your emotions. Channel your rage, confusion, and desperation into being kind. Your emotions prove that you care and that you are capable of gifting that empathy to those around you. 

Over the next four years, you can take my body. You can tell me, “Your body, my choice.” You can scream it until you are blue in the face. But no law, no act of violation will ever allow you to take my mind. You will never steal my joy. I will always smile when I look up and spot the moon. I will always treat people the way I would want to be treated. I will continue to counter your radical hate with extreme hope, love, and care. I will have empathy for strangers. I will love my neighbor as I love myself, radically and without bounds. 

And I will know that when the world was watching, I chose to be kind. 

This week’s playlist: 

1. “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart” by Taylor Swift. Talk about waking up and going to school and playing flag rugby with a bunch of fifteen-year-olds in PE class not an hour after your post-election result sob. I did the same thing in 2016. I cried in the car on the way to school, and my mom dropped me off at Spanish class. Horrible that eight years later history repeats itself, but at least this time, I’m in Spain not high school Spanish 3. 

2. “Unwritten” by Natasha Bedingfield. One of my favorite students has been asking me to write my name and a series of song lyrics in his binder where he is collecting words of wisdom from the people at our school who “serve cunt.” I was honored, naturally, and I chose to write the chorus of “Unwritten.” And then, we listened to it as a class because it was November 6th, and I needed an excuse to sing it. 

3. “Light of a Clear Blue Morning” by Dolly Parton. I wish I had woken up to this light, but the point of this song is that hope is never lost and that the blue morning will come. So cheers blue morning. I can’t wait for the day I wake up and breathe you in. 

4. “Galileo” by the Indigo Girls. How long until we get things right? How long are we going to be serving time for mistakes made by another in another lifetime? I don’t know, but I’ll be listening to the Indigo Girls and leaning on my girls in the meantime. I am hosting a Crafts, Charcuterie, and Commiseration get-together this weekend. <3

5. “Free” by Florence + The Machine. I’ve also been listening to a lot of Florence these days. I think the lyrics of this song say it all: 

Is this how it is? 

Is this how it’s always been? 

To exist in the face of suffering and death 

And somehow still keep singing

Oh like Christ up on a cross

Who died for us? Who died for what? 

Oh, you don’t wanna call it off? 

But there’s nothing else that I know how to do 

But to open up my arms and give it all to you

‘Cause I hear the music, I feel the beat

And for a moment, when I’m dancing 

I am free, I am free

I am free, I am free