"It’s Very Lonely": Black Americans Are Opening Up About What Life In Red States Feels Like Right Now

(Cont'd) "Living successful a reddish authorities close present adds different dimension. The fearfulness and anxiousness are real. The ambiance is often unwelcoming, and, increasingly, interactions, whether with Americans oregon non-Americans, tin beryllium much rude, dismissive, oregon outright hostile toward Black people."

"What is astir unsettling is realizing, successful existent time, that policies are being designed and implemented to erode our well-being and intelligence health: the gutting of the Department of Education, shifting SBA policies that marque it harder for Black entrepreneurs, and rolling backmost civilian rights protections that widen gaps, specified arsenic entree to lodging and education, alternatively of closing them. 

Despite these challenges, I americium reminded, sometimes by religion alone, that we indispensable support moving forward. We person ever done so. We proceed to commune for strength, for clarity, and for hope. We connect, we organize, and we persist."

——Anonymous, 63, Female, Florida

12. "Even though North Carolina is deemed a purple battleground state, a batch of gerrymandering has taken place, which makes it harder to crook blue. Some authorities representatives person switched to the Republican Party to easy support their seats. Meanwhile, we request much fighters to instrumentality connected these harsh labour laws and the acquisition strategy that wants to wage teachers and librarians a livable wage."

"I person faced favoritism from jobs for being educated and autistic, whether it is successful librarian oregon teacher-related fields. It is hard to find stableness erstwhile the workforce is precise cliquish, and others bash not judge my property arsenic a caring, compassionate, open-minded idiosyncratic who shares progressive values of adjacent rights for all. I americium successful a authorities wherever everyone should deliberation alike and not person a caput of their own. I ticker a batch of fearfulness films, and I'm looking guardant to being a last miss surviving this era."

—Anonymous, 33, Female, North Carolina