Why (We Fight For Equity)

  “I’m here as a Christian, as a parent, as a former conservative Republican, and as a community member who loves my small town. My faith instructs me to love my neighbor as myself. My love for my town compels me to recognize its faults and try to make it better. My experience as a parent reminds me daily that every human being is someone’s child.  Since becoming a parent, I have watched crying children be intentionally ripped from their parents’ arms at the southern border; learned of the horrific suicide rates of transgender teens; and watched George Floyd beg for his mother as he took his final breaths. I started to realize the ways in which my own ignorance was contributing to these horrors. I began to imagine what it would feel like to be a mother at the southern border, or the mother of a transgender child, or the mother of a Black man murdered at the hands of the police. I committed to listen. I was raised colorblind and taught that Pride flags were unnecessary celebrations of s

It has taken me a while to be able to articulate why I am a part of Equity Buckfield. As a white Christian female “of a certain age,” I am aware of my privilege in society and have struggled to accept that I am indeed privileged. What does privilege mean? To me, it means that when I hear people say “I am so tired of hearing about gay/trans/POC/ or any other people’s rights” this means they can turn off thinking about it and get angry when they have to think about it. Not hearing or thinking about these things are easy for someone who thinks none of it affects them.   I am a long-time feminist; you could say I am the feminist Rush Limbaugh warned you about. No, I don't hate men. I am married to one. But as a mother and grandmother, I worry that hard-fought women's rights are under attack. But now this is not my only worry. The rights of any group of people who feel afraid is and should be a worry for all of us.   I grew up here hearing racist, homophobic hateful comments often.