To my people: I love you, and I'm grateful for you.

I still believe in us, and we need each other more than ever.

Well. Here we are.

None of us wanted this.

I’m still processing, even as I write this. Like you, I imagine, I’m cycling through emotions—grief, disbelief, anger. But one thing that I keep thinking about today is how grateful I am for my people.

In the last general election I was in a red state, and it felt awful and isolating. This year, I’m in New York and I can’t tell you how much it means to me that I walked out my door this morning to take my daughter to school and got a big hug from the first woman that I saw—my neighbor.

Then my partner and I walked, maybe intuitively, to the beloved local bakery that’s owned by our neighbor and his wife. He went through a terrible immigration ordeal earlier this year, and the community rallied around him to help re-unite him with his family.

He came out to talk to us while we ate our biscuits and jam. We commiserated and comforted each other. I love that we had a safe place to go and be fed, and I love that he felt safe, too.

You know what else I didn’t have in the last election? I didn’t have you.

We started this Substack three years ago with the hope of connecting with like-minded people who cared about issues that impact women and children, and to tell the stories that our newsroom editors didn’t always support. We wanted to tell the kinds of stories that we wanted to see.

And now there are thousands of us here every month. And that means a lot to me. It can feel like we are alone right now, and that no one cares, but we are here. And we do care.

If you’re not surrounded by a physical community of like-minded people right now, or just need a boost, can I share some things from my community that helped me a little so far today?

One of my neighbors woke up this morning and felt inspired to get out the sidewalk chalk and write this on the street corners in pastel colors. Local hero.

Another neighbor, in an incredibly inventive gesture of political art, stuck tiny “Tr*mp” flags into the dog poop along the street that other (less thoughtful) neighbors had failed to clean up. If you think people don’t care, just consider the thought and execution that went into this little act of resistance. I salute you, neighbor, and hope that you were wearing gloves.¹

So far this morning I passed a dad who was pushing a stroller with tears in his eyes. I passed a mom pushing a stroller who gave me a knowing look of anger and grief.

I stopped to hug a friend who was taking dozens of muffins and cupcakes to the teachers at the progressive school that our kids go to, where the majority of students and teachers are people of color. The teachers will be heartbroken, and they are the ones who really have to put on a brave face for our kids all day today.

I believe that all of this matters—there are so many people who care and people who feel like we do. I also want to say, though, that this doesn’t minimize your feelings or make any of this okay.

Today seems like the right day for a metaphor, but I can’t summon one. What I do have is a story. If you are newish here, you might not know that I have an interracial family. My partner is Black, and we have a young Black bi-racial daughter. I’m white.

Just over ten years ago I was a white woman who knew mostly white people and I had the beginnings of a political consciousness, but not one that was very deep. In my 30’s, I got divorced and after a while I fell in love with someone who is Black. That simple fact changed my life forever. When we fell in love, Obama was President, and to me, at least, anything seemed possible.

Then, a couple years later, Trump was elected and the world shifted. A couple years after that, I became pregnant with a Black bi-racial child during the Trump presidency, and gave birth to a girl during the Kavanaugh hearings. A year later was 2020, and the murder of George Floyd, and Black Lives Matter. I got an education in why politics is personal, and learned that how we vote and what we support can be a matter of life-and-death, very quickly and intensely.

Then there was the last election, when I posted pictures of my interracial family and pleaded with people in the red state where I grew up, and in the conservative Mormon community that I grew up in, to not vote for a racist that would harm my family.

And I wish that I could say that through all of this, all of my loved ones, and neighbors, and nearest and dearest saw what was at stake for us and people like us, and did the right thing.

But not all of them did. Some did, but many did not. To this day, I have loved ones and people that I have known for a long time that vote in ways that hurt us, that openly endorse a man and party that seek to hurt us. Many of them do not like what I write here, and some of them get angry at me for what I write.

People who know my child, and even purport to care about her, actively vote for someone and a party that is openly racist. And it hurts. And it is dehumanizing.

And now in this election, this party and this man are targeting and hurting women. Women stand to lose their lives, their citizenship, and their personhood—and many already have thanks to the GOP. Women and children will be harmed. Immigrants will be harmed. Queer and trans people will be harmed. The list goes on and on.

If this feels like a betrayal to you, it is.

Let’s not sugarcoat it. I had hoped that because so many women were turning out, that they would vote for Harris. Many didn’t. Many of us hoped that the men in our lives would come out to stand up for women. Many didn’t. It hurts. It is a betrayal.

If you feel like you’re grieving because you’re having to come to terms with this betrayal now, and you’re grieving the fact that people either embrace beliefs that dehumanize you and your family, or are apathetic about them, that’s the normal way to feel.

I am familiar with this feeling because I have felt it for going on a decade now. I am still connected to a lot of people in my life who hold these problematic beliefs, but we are not as close. That’s been hard.

Some people we have had to cut off. My partner, who is Black, is more used to low expectations and bad behavior from some Americans. It’s newer to me. Choosing between my daughter and other people that I’m close to that hold problematic beliefs has been hurtful, but the choice is ultimately easy.

I choose her and protecting her and my family every time. Yet the process has been, and sometimes still is, painful.

But I’ll also tell you this: In this process, you find your people. And the people who are like-minded, who see you, who see you as fully human and would fight for you and are fighting for you and alongside you, these are your people. And it feels so good to find your people. And it feels good to let other people know that you see them and that you will fight for them, too.

Garrett Bucks wrote this here today, and it really resonated:

“I hate what you’re likely feeling right now, but I’m also grateful for it. At the core of our shared sadness and rage is a longing for a better world for all of us. We’re scared for each other. We’re angry on each other’s behalf. We’re heartbroken, not just individually but collectively. Those are devastating emotions, but they’re also beautiful ones.”

15thCenturyFeminist posted this note today, and it was really the energy that I need today.

Another reader on Garrett Bucks ‘s post left this comment, and I have been sending messages like this to friends all day. It feels really good—try it. It’s part of the inspiration for this post, actually. Let people know that they are your people today. We all need it.

Thank you for being here. Thank you for being my people. That means the world to me today.

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MATRIARCHY REPORT is written by Lane Anderson and Allison Lichter.

Lane Anderson is a writer, journalist, and Clinical Associate Professor at one of those universities for coastal elites. She has won fellowships and many SPJ awards for her writing on inequality and family social issues. She has an MFA from Columbia University. She was raised in Utah and lives in New York City with her partner and young daughter.

Allison Lichter is associate dean at the Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York. She has been a writer, producer and editor for radio and print, covering the arts, politics, and the workplace. She was born and raised in Queens, and lives in Brooklyn with her partner and daughter.

1. Too much? I hope it gave you a laugh—goodness knows we can all use one!