This Too Is Idaho!

 

The Idaho Coalition Against Sexual and Domestic Violence collaborated with many community partners to host a rally today where we responded to the recent acts of violence perpetrated against our citizens:

“We must turn towards the recent reports of violence in Idaho and see the connections – high school football players racially abusing and raping their teammate who has a disability, college football players sexually assaulting a young woman, men targeting and killing a gay man, a young man committing a domestic violence-related homicide, and more. These are not unrelated acts of violence; but are connected by a singular truth that our society encourages us to take power from others based on our identities, such as gender, race, ability, and sexual orientation….”

We heard powerful words from Kelly Miller, Fatima Tall, Mel Leviton, Jeff Matsushita, and Senator Cherie Buckner Webb.  Below are the words that I shared with the group and with you:

This Too Is Idaho, Rep. Melissa Wintrow

Thank you all, for your powerful words.  As Mel Leviton noted, “The fear, the violence, the horror, the hate won’t stop until we join together and stop it.” We all have a role in creating a new narrative for our state, one of love, compassion, and openness. And that requires ACTION. Mel’s question is a powerful one? What action will we take?  What are we going to do?

Some years ago, my dear mother, from her deathbed, sent a message to me loudly and clearly: we have a choice on how we will act, on how we will “show up” each moment in our lives. Even though she was dying a painful death from cancer, she chose to show up with gratitude for her nurses, with a smile when her physical therapist guided her to her feet, and with childlike appreciation as ice cream melted on her swollen tongue.  She knew that her choice to show up with hope, love, and determination impacted not only her life but those around her. Through her actions, she changed a little part of the world she was in and a large part of the world that I was in.

In me, she instilled hope, love, and compassion.

In what feels like a dark, oppressive blanket of violence and hate covering our state, we are faced with what will we do? How will we choose to show up?  Will we show up with frustration and anger and hate? Or will we show up with hope, love, reason, knowledge, compassion?

In an answer to Mel’s call…..

I will choose to do everything in my power with my power and my privilege as a white, middle class, able-bodied, cis woman to continue to educate my colleagues on the narrative of fairness, equity, and freedom.

I will remain alert and vigilant to confront oppressive practices and laws. I will ask tough questions and fill the stale air in my committee rooms with the strong and beautiful voices of those citizens in our community that go unheard.  I will remind my colleagues of our narrative of equality for all people, a narrative that promotes fairness and openness.

I will continue to challenge laws made out of fear that constrict and control people’s lives and put them in continued jeopardy.  And I will continue to initiate relationships with colleagues to create laws that are in the best interests of all of Idaho’s families not hateful bills that limit our freedoms and jeopardize our safety.

I will demonstrate in my speech and actions that civility is more than smiling while you disregard someone’s experience or their humanity.  Civility is facing our fears of being wrong and truly listening and acknowledging the spirit of the person across from us.

What can we do together?

We can engage with the leaders of our schools to support them in their efforts to create open and caring learning environments…to Implement school-wide anti-bias approaches from kindergarten to college – on gender, race, ability, and sexual orientation and comprehensive prevention strategies on gender violence to make our schools more just, equitable and safe.

We can engage with our elected officials; share our narrative for a loving world that is fair and just and protects the humanity of all people.  We will not relent. We will not roll over.  We will remain visible and vocal until we Add the Words.

We must continue to go to the polls and demonstrate our values through our votes.  We must support candidates we believe in and bring our friends to the polls.  We must run for office, ourselves! We can take nothing for granted and we must work hard.

We can choose where to do business and purchase goods — from businesses that openly support equity and fairness.  And continue to pressure the businesses that don’t embrace and stand up for equality.

We must listen to girls and women and people who are gender nonconforming, people of color, people with disabilities, and people who identify as LGBTQ – most impacted by domination and violence; listen to their stories of the truth of their histories and lived experiences and believe in their truth.

We must distract, disrupt, or confront acts of verbal and physical violence that we see and hear. We will not look the other way. Even if we are afraid to do something ourselves, we can seek help and support and find creative ways to disrupt or stop a violent act.

We must continue to challenge our binary system that places the wide diversity of our human experience into a couple of categories and dismisses the entire range of our humanity.

We must venture out of our circles of friends and work to engage with people that are different from us…this is tough work, you already know that.  We must continue….

We must return to our circle of friends to seek comfort and to renew our hearts and to rejuvenate ourselves, so we can continue our work.  This is hard work. This too is Idaho. We are pushing back on the entire weight of dominant culture…we are asking people to unlearn years of socialization. We will get tired, but we have no other choice than to press on.  To choose our path.  To choose how and when we will show up and act.

Let us show up and demonstrate through our actions and speech the narrative of love, compassion, justice, and equity!  This too is Idaho!