Chapter 15: How do we Arm Ourselves with Love?: Examining “Armed Love” Through Educators’ Critical Conversations in an Online Platform

On the morning after the 2016 election results, I, like so many other educators, wondered anxiously about the future state of education and the well-being of our children, particularly those who historically have been raced, classed, gendered, abled, and seen as other or less than. As a biracial Mexicana and bilingual special education teacher educator, Trump was the antithesis of everything I believed in and stood for. Though I couldn’t come to grips fully with the reality that this man was the next President of the United States, I understood his presidency was a turning point for our country and for the world. Metaphorically, this understanding appeared to me as a red line drawn in the sand. If I didn't know before, it was clear to me now what I believed in and what I did not. The red line was a demarcation representing who I was and who I was not. I did not choose sides based on simplistic binary categorizations (good/bad, right/wrong, republican/democrat). The “sides” the red line established, for me, were greatly complex and multidimensional. They were intersectional and evolving, integrating my growing understanding of my identity as a woman, mother, scholar, teacher, cancer thriver, product of a Mexican father and White mother, and spiritual seeker. I knew I wanted to be on the side where integrity, authenticity, transparency, honesty, and love resided in ways that recognized the humanity and spirituality within each of us. I no longer could withstand spaces of hatred, intolerance, and divisiveness—emotions that fuel continued separation, violence, and marginalization of people.