Below I'm going to share a paper I wrote for a modern poetry and art class from this semester. Much like most Christians at a public university, I've been labeled and told who I am and what I believe by people who had never spoken two sentences to me. I'm not one to start a conflict in the classroom, so this was my voice.

In all honesty, this was my concession speech. I didn't realize how many Trump voters were silenced during the campaigns due to fear of people's reactions. That showed up at the polls. I wrote this fully expecting Hillary Clinton to be my next president. I reflected on losing in 2008, and again in 2012. Both times I cried, went to bed, got up the next morning and went to school and work.

I've been called many names in the past year, the least offensive being deplorable. The rest include a full spectrum of profanity that I do not use nor condone. These have been hurled at me mainly in the classroom, including from professors, and online.

This is very personal for me, but I think it's relevant. This is one deplorable's experience during the 2016 election.This is my story in an essay:

The piece is entitled Industry and the Arts II, made in 1969. It's a Pop Art screen-print, a category of art that Ray Lichtenstein explored in his work. At first I walked by it without a thought as the class toured the Wichita Falls Museum of Art. Loganne called me over, saying she thought I would appreciate the piece, and she was right. The contrast was, of course, the first part of it that caught my eye: the primary colors reflecting the uniform of Superman, the diagonal line drawn straight through, and the designs themselves. The industrial vision of a plane streaming past a factory puffing smoke is offset by a mechanical cog in the center surrounded by polka dots. On the other side, the cog becomes a flower shape. The red and yellow interlace with solid prints mixed with polka dots. A man appears to be whistling, or perhaps he’s a Native American with a feather in his hair. Birds fly above the man’s head with a stream of musical notes diagonally placed across the section. More and more details appeared the longer I looked at the print. Once the visual aspects sunk in, I realized how much of a personal and political significance Lichtenstein had created for a 23-year-old college student in Texas, 2016.

Optimism is often attributed to ignorance and immaturity; I believe it to be tied to choosing innocence and refusing to grow up. The colors and cartoon structure reminded me of Saturday mornings with my sister eating Great Value cereal, the cheap stuff. We watched Elmer Fudd try to shoot Bug’s Bunny, and found the clues Blue left for Steve. The tie to that innocence also came from the Superman colors of yellow, red, and blue which dominate the piece. American society portrayed with an ideal hero’s colors. The division of the factory structure of society with respect to the creative brighter side. I saw me. I see the scientist turning cogs and wheels with analysis and logic. I see the eccentric writer and painter, the little girl who performed one woman shows for an empty couch. The writer inside hiding novels and poems because they will never be genius to the people who judge them emerging from the grey into the yellow. This was my personal connection.

Returned to the print later. Suddenly, a new contradiction realization came. The division of Republican versus Democrat. No more decorum. No more understanding that love is not agreement at all times. I found the irony of the blue Democrat piece holding a factory. I see the humanities division of universities that teach students what to think rather than how to think. It’s pushing the student on the conveyor belt of becoming uniform citizens of anarchy. The creativity of the Republican farmer with yellow splashed onto their party’s red uniform. I see Republicans wishing for more work ethic in Democrats, picturing the factory inside of the blue space. I see Democrats wishing for more creativity and less vigor for tradition in Republicans. Neither party sees that the media and government stand in between. Love is not politics. Love is not agreeing. Members of the "basket of deplorables" can reach across the grey line; much like a homosexual can laugh with a Christian. They don’t agree politically. They don’t agree on morals, but still they connect and laugh with one another. Where has this gone?

Next thought on the stream crossing my mind while staring at a simple vibrant piece of art, and realizing my own experience. I am a Christian at a Liberal Arts University where some believe what they say when they preach tolerance, while others become hostile. “I vote Republican.” Deplorable! It seems that respect and decency have been swept away. Media allows for the division. We laugh with one another, and then have to cope with the fact that we laughed with someone we find deplorable. It’s easy to hate when there’s not a face staring right back at you, in the flesh. It is much worse when we have already built a relationship with one another. How do we hold onto hate when we feel ourselves caring for someone who offends us?

Heartbreak surfaces for me: one that has nothing to do with romance. Why is everything sexualized anyways? My best friend from eighth grade to sophomore year of college and his change sharply pricks my mind and heart as I stare at the print in front of me. Christmas he came to my house. My family had created a Christmas extravaganza, as we do every year. Mom and I are in the kitchen baking a dozen different kinds of cookies surrounded by tinsel and snow globes. He chuckles at our eccentric traditions and helps himself to a soda because he is family. His birthday flashes to mind. The last one we celebrated together. I picked him up handing him “manly” flowers of blue. I drove him to the movies; ironically, his choice was Titanic playing in 3-D. He was there when my family dog died. We sat in the movie theatre; it was his turn to pay. My choice this time, so Man of Steel began with my favorite superhero story unfolding. My phone flashes and it’s my mom telling me to come quick. Our family dog lay dying. He quickly agrees to come with me. I don’t get to say goodbye. These and so many more memories continue to play like a bittersweet film strip in my mind. It all ended. The sweetness of the memories and the loyalty of our seven year friendship were ended by his first semester in college.

You see, I hate political correctness, and I determined that to be the cause of our demise after the years of autopsies I’ve performed. I loathe political correctness. One semester in college is all it took for him to hate me based on my skin color. Less than sixteen weeks and over 364 weeks of tears, laughter, too much Taco Bell, and laying on each other’s shoulders were erased by political bias and propaganda. You see, something I wouldn’t deem an important notion until he made it his defining identity is this: he is half Mexican and half white. His Mexican father abandoned his white mother before he even got a picture with him. She worked three jobs his entire life to provide him with nice shoes and lunch money. Yet, he decided that she and I, white people are the worst thing to ever happen to America. His ethnicity is valid because he has tan skin and black hair. My ethnicity is bleached by Irish blood so never mind anything else. But why should it matter in the first place? Racial divide is being spurred on rampantly. It’s instigated, the question is for what end. Reflecting and staring at the print I remember my senior year of high school and my boyfriend at the time. Much like my former best friend, he was also biracial with two distinct sides. His roots founded in a Mexican mother and African-American father. Endearingly, I called him my “blaxican” because neither of us had been properly educated in political correctness at the time. If only someone had warned us. Warned me not to call him such an offensive nickname, and warned him to not crack “white girl” jokes about my inability to dance, jump high, or run fast. We were two innocent kids who lacked proper education to watch our words like treading on eggshells.

The world is so diverse, and there are so many things that we could do to change it for the better. Why do we debate slavery that was a century and a half ago when there is slavery prevalent today? People are being slaughtered for their religion in foreign nations, but we talk about safety zones here. We want so much to make a difference, and we can. Stop the division. The grey line of media that is perfectly dividing we the people, and we feed it. We feed it so it will grow and create a greater divide painted grey. Learn from our history, but focus on the issues of today. We are better than the division in this print. Religious beliefs do not have to change their structural foundations. “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to Gentile,” (Romans 1:16 NIV).

This is my story. I am a native of this land. I am of Irish and German descent from immigrants. I am a Native American of North America. I am an unashamed Christian and unapologetic American. My love for my fellow man doesn’t rest on race, religion, or creed. I refuse to feed into that grey line of the media, both social and supposed news sources. Lichtenstein’s division is clear, but the dividing line so thin. There will always be disagreement, as long as the freedoms given in our Constitution are upheld, but disagreement doesn’t have to mean division forged by hate. Deplorable! Bleeding heart! Why not, we the people?

Written by Rachel Dillon, October 31, 2016