#icivics

The night went on. The results kept coming. I played all the games on iCivics. I was getting tired. Things weren’t called yet, but I couldn’t stay up much longer.

I went to bed on November 8th 2016, facing a bright future, a progressive future. The future I dreamed of and wished for and seemed right, right to be, right to be now.

Nearly four years ago today, on November 9th, 2016, I woke up. “Trump won,” my dad told me, standing outside my bedroom door. “He won the election.” It was too early to process; I was still in the groggy state where nothing feels real. Clinton winning had been too good to be true. I wasn’t shocked, but I rarely have strong surprise reactions.

I lost my faith in adults, in people, in my own government far too young. My father said that the average person is stupider than you think they are. My maternal grandfather said he lost his faith in democracy, seeing how it worked out here and across the world, especially his native Taiwan. My paternal grandmother said, “I used to think that you can can believe whatever you want, so long as it doesn’t hurt me or anyone I care about -- so long as it doesn’t hurt anyone, really. Now I’m not sure about that.” I still think about that.

I lost my faith far too young. My faith in everything.

Children think adults are superheros with all the answers. They think, or at least children in places like me, think the government is a warm maternal figure, caring for us as we care for it in return. The government will change as society changes, and of course society is changing. Of course society is going where your parents want it to. Of course the world is kind to people it should be kind to.

Society works because everybody puts in their part, and of course, of course, everybody puts in their part.

Surely everybody puts in their part?

Surely everybody cares?

I don’t like saying much about my age, but for a vague guide, I wasn’t wearing real bras when my worldview was shattered, and I wouldn’t for a while longer.

I didn’t get to have a slow realization while growing up and entering the world. I didn’t get to gain an understanding of the bubble I lived in and my childish naiveté. Instead, the world banged on my door and thrust the truth into my face, yelling, “Fvck you. Fvck you and your dreams and people like you and everything you want from your childhood and your time now. The world is a dirty, disgusting place and we don’t want to change. There are systems of power and they will never give you what you deserve.”

It wasn’t just the election, not really. Mainly through reading Tumblr blogs, I learned that the systems are rigged and nobody cares because the laws are rigged. I started reading TIME magazine around the same time and was exposed to the #metoo movement. Flint’s water crisis loomed large at that time. The Pulse nightclub shooting. I still remember the cover for that one: every name and age in a column of red text, annotated only by a question -- “Why did they die?”

They insist atheists like me are amoral. They refuse to make space for mixed-race people like me. They alienate Asians like me, and especially now, with COVID-19, they taunt people like me and they yell slurs at people like me and they beat people like me up. They kill queer kids like me, bully us far past the point of inhumanity. They steal the bodies of girls like me. They shoot youths like me up.

They are so much worse to others and it makes my heart ache. I support and elevate those who have it worse than me, but I never forget that I am not a “perfect” person either, not in the eyes of normality -- the collective experiences of my identities weigh upon me even when I do not experience direct discrimination. Too many people deserve so much more -- too much -- than what the world resigns to allow them.

The year is 2020. The world has changed. I have changed. It is November 3, and I am sitting on the other side of my family’s couch. The election results are slowly, slowly beginning to roll in. Instead of slivers of progress, they look like stats in a sick game where my well-being and others’ lives are the stakes. I am making a Tumblr post, with plans to bake cupcakes for my mom when I’m done.

And, of course, play iCivics games on my school-issued white MacBook Air late into the night. 

What did we learn from this, children? What moral or message do we take from this story of pain, betrayal, and slim, bleak hope? Why did I want to share this tale?

You tell me. I have cupcakes to make.

Games created by iCivics teach students concepts from how the nation's court system works and how laws are made to how presidential campaigns work and what it's like to be on a jury. Sotomayor has predicted iCivics "will change America" and may be O'Connor's "longest-lasting legacy."

The game iCivics has updated in Spanish and is called "Do I Have a Right?" In it, players run a law firm. They listen to potential clients' stories, decide if their constitutional rights have been violated and, if so, match the clients with lawyers who can help. The game was first released in 2011 and iCivics says it has been played nearly 9 million times.

Guys, have you ever heard about iCivics? ME EITHER, AND THATS A SHAME CAUSE ITS GR9

It’s a non-profit founded by retired Supreme Court of the United States Justice Sandra FREAKING Day O'Connor that provides educational online games and lesson plans to promote civics education and encourage students to become active citizens.

Check out those games, LOOK HOW FUN AND WELL DESIGNED THEY LOOK

Me: Oh no, that can't get any worst