How They Talk About You Is Not For You

As the months of this Administration have unfolded, I’ve noticed two things happening in me at once: I’ve tuned some things out AND I’ve cranked my hypervigilance way up. On one hand, I no longer play NPR in the kitchen while I’m making coffee—my nervous system can’t handle hearing Robert Kennedy riff about healthcare before I’ve even changed out of my bathrobe. On the other hand, I can’t help but scan the news for what each new policy means: who will be affected, how quickly, and how deeply.

We Are All Characters

Over time, I’ve had to disentangle myself from the way they talk about me (a “woke Progressive person of color Democrat”) and the communities I care about. Here’s the truth: when they speak about people who look like me, they aren’t speaking to me. They’re speaking to their base. Their playbook uses extreme language, cherry-picked arguments, and outright lies are designed to keep their supporters fired up.

The other part of their playbook: turn real, whole people into villains so that whole communities can be painted with the same brush. Examples? Villainizing Kilmar Obrego Garcia as a stand in for all immigrants or attacking former head of CDC Susan Monarez to attack public health scientists and doctors. I’m very aware that their talking points are hateful and hurtful, and could eventually increase the likelihood of violence from their supporters. Words have consequences. Pizza Gate, anyone? 

But here’s when I remind myself: those talking points aren’t for me. Knowing that they have turned complex whole people and communities into caricatures that can be used to scare their supporters makes it much clearer that they will say what they need to in order to keep their supporters happy. These talking points aren’t for me. And they shouldn’t live rent free in my head.

Another way of saying it borrows from Maya Angelou: They have shown me who they are. Why on earth would I believe what they say about me or the people I love?

And that brings me back to lessons I learned early on.

Shields Up

As a South Asian person growing up in Portland, OR in the 1980s, I learned very quickly that I was brown and there seemed to be something wrong or weird about that to my white classmates. At the same time, I also grew up in a tight immigrant community where I spent every weekend in my Uncle and Auntie’s houses, surrounded by my culture, food, and friends whose bodies looked just like mine and where I wasn’t treated as an outsider. 

The difference wasn’t me—it was the people around me, their words, and how they treated me. Somewhere along the way, I started building what I now think of as “shields.”

A shield is that voice inside that says, “That’s not true.” It’s the recognition that, “Oh, this is YOUR shit, not my shit.” In my mind, it looks like an invisible forcefield—something I can bring down when needed. Do racist comments still hurt? Yes. Is it exhausting to endure them? Absolutely. But does someone else’s bullshit need to damage my own sense of humanity and who I am? Hell no.

Those shields didn’t make everything bounce off me, but they gave me space. They gave me a choice. And in today’s political climate, they still do.

Tending Shields

The thing about shields is that they wear down. Daily microaggressions, outright attacks, and relentless headlines can crack them. That’s why tending to them matters.

Reinforcement comes in many forms: being in community with people who share your identities and experiences, surrounding yourself with art and beauty, taking walks in nature, pulling tarot cards, reading your astrological chart, cultivating lineage practices, sitting in meditation, taking medication, or pausing for awe and wonder. Whatever works, works.

As a therapist, I often invite clients to ask themselves: What strengthens your shields? What makes them feel thin or cracked? Answering that is the first step in tending them.

In Closing

I don’t know what the next few years will bring, but I do know this: the shields we carry, and the ways we care for them, matter. They don’t erase harm, but they give us space to remember who we are. That, in itself, is an act of resistance.

Note: This post was inspired by something I think I saw on social media a few months ago. I tried re-finding it to link in this post, but could not figure out what it was or who wrote it. Appreciations to whatever I saw that got me thinking. <3