Who Are We?

 Sometimes I'm just astounded by people. Completely baffled. 

I shouldn't watch as many videos as I do. I watch videos on You Tube, on TikTok, on Instagram. I watch progressive news and I watch funny people and I watch feminist content. And I watch videos of Trump supporters and conspiracy theorists and brief moments of misogyny (I can't watch open hate, I just can't). 

I watch people twist themselves into pretzels to justify nonsense. I watch people hate others for existing. I watch people support others having their rights stripped because they don't believe in the same God, or the same president or just because they exist in a body that someone else doesn't like.

I don't understand how these people exist. Trans kids are being killed, literally murdered, because why? What the fuck? They're just existing. Muslims, Jews, women, Palestinians. Black people always and forever. For just existing.

How do people hate enough to extinguish a life for existing beyond a line you have in your head? I really don't understand. I hate Trump with every cell of my being but I don't wish him dead. I don't wish death on anyone. Even those who have destroyed me.

I'm a Jew who bleeds for the Palestinians and also for Jews. I believe Israel is committing genocide and I'm breathless with outrage and sorrow. I don't even wish Hamas dead. I can't. Life is the only precious thing we have. I wish them to stop. I wish them to become outlaws and outcasts. But I don't wish them dead.

I absolutely hate. I wish I didn't but I do. Still the idea of taking a gun and ending someone is nonsense. Could I kill? I could kill to save my daughter's life. That's it. I don't know if I could kill to save myself. 

I just don't understand any of it anymore. Men hate women so deeply. A certain segment of Americans wish for a civil war to kill other Americans. And children are murdered for existing in their skin. People are killed for living their truth.

Who are Americans? Who have we become?