If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.
- President-Elect Barack Obama (November 4th, 2008)
This is likely another historic day in American history: not only the election of our 46th president, but also of the first African-American female vice president. A day to be celebrated, for sure, especially after the abject regression of the past four years. And yet I’m not really that happy today, and maybe even a bit wistful, which I’ve been struggling to figure out for several hours now and think that I have.
One reason that I’m hesitant to be fully joyful, to celebrate this moment as deeply as it should be, is that I remember 2008 and what followed. I cried that night as Barack Hussein Obama took the stage in Grant Park with his beautiful, all-American African-American family and ushered in a new era not only in our politics but our civic life: I don’t know a single one of my friends, especially the African-American ones, who believed that we’d see a Black president in our lifetimes … and suddenly he was there, all hopey and changey and inspiring, straight out of central casting.
And then America, especially white America and the GOP-controlled Senate, made his and our life hell far too often over the last six of the next eight years. Yes, he rightfully inspired hope, and, yes, he did affect some meaningful change, but as the opposition to his every effort – and, truth be told, his very existence in that ultimate role – proved, he was still Black and America reminded him of it every chance it got.
It didn’t matter that he fought successfully to create the first national healthcare program in a half-century that dramatically reduced the number of our fellow citizens who were uninsured. It didn’t matter that he sang “Amazing Grace” beautifully and helped us heal after the tragedy at Emmanuel AME church. It didn’t matter that there wasn’t whiff or hint of scandal during his entire time in office – other than the manufactured outrage about his tan suit and proclivity to remove his suit jacket when working in the Oval Office – and that he was the very moral exemplar of who we hope our presidents to be.
It didn’t matter because he was Black.…
As I watched this spectacle play out and contested every supposedly well-meaning colleague or friend who dared to suggest that the country was showing itself to be “post-racial” somehow, my capacity for hope dimmed. Though he may have occupied the office, it was clear that, in reality, America really wasn’t ready for its first Black president.
And then, thanks to that pernicious gift of slavery at our country’s founding, the Electoral College enabled the installation of a singularly unqualified and unworthy individual as his successor, one whose popular vote count trailed his female opponent’s by over 3 million. So, not only did we end up with minority rule by the GOP, but we showed that the country wasn’t ready for its first female president, either.
Say what you want about Hillary and critique her ’til the cows come home, but you cannot, in any credible way, compare her qualifications for the office to her opponent’s. Seriously, other than being white, male and (supposedly) rich, what were/are 45’s bona fides? Beyond the myth that so many wanted to believe – in part, I believe, because it allowed them to look past his narcissistic, pathological inhumanity – the reality of his allegedly successful business career was actually a series of bankruptcies, burned banks and investors and stiffed small contractors. Now, shockingly, in just four years, he’s done much the same to our country. Who could’ve seen that coming? Oh, wait.…
And what’s been the nature of this administration? Simply put, narcissistic, pathological lying and unconscionable inhumanity at scale inflicted both domestically and internationally. Except, of course, if you’re in the 1% who garnered 83% of the benefit from his sole legislative triumph, the deficit-exploding tax cut of 2017. And please don’t get me started on the overt and abominable racism, sexism/misogyny, xenophobia, etc.
Sadly, it’s difficult to pick a nadir because there are so many embarrassments and transgressions from which to choose. This week, I think I’ll go with kids in cages at the border still, having been reminded of this in recent weeks by the revelation that our government has begun deporting ‘illegal’ immigrant children to Mexico even if this isn’t their country of origin. Don’t think on that too long or you’ll get completely enraged, especially because damn near half of the country just voted to perpetuate this and the myriad other forms of inhumanity that have been perpetrated by 45 and his sycophants and enablers.
This being said, I suppose we shouldn’t forget that he’s become one of only three presidents in our nation’s history to be impeached. It really says something that this historic reality is but one of many embarrassing and immoral aspects of his legacy.
And I haven’t even mentioned his unconscionable abdication of leadership of our country during a global pandemic that’s claimed the lives of nearly a quarter-million of our neighbors while afflicting more than 120,000 new ones each day….
As a Person of Color, I have watched in horror at how systematically he and his enablers have not only targeted and undone much of his predecessor’s beneficial contributions but also witnessed him demean, diminish and disenfranchise The Other and The Dispossessed with a consistency that is as contemptible as it is damning.
And his and his enablers’ broad, continual and too often successful efforts at voter suppression? Well, my proper southern mother raised me right and taught me not to say anything if I didn’t have anything nice to say, so Ima leave that right there.…
So now we stand again on the threshold of history: it appears that the Biden-Harris ticket will prevail. I am truly joyful about this, but I’d be lying if I didn’t also admit to a sense of foreboding. Not only did the eagerly anticipated Blue Wave not materialize, but this likely leaves the Senate in GOP hands – and especially those of several of the highest profile partisan hacks who were not tossed out of office as so many had hoped – which means that every attempt of the future Administration to remedy the sins of the current one will likely be thwarted (as well as even the successful attempts challenged in the newly stacked and ultra-conservative courts). In other words, we’re in for another period of stalemate in our national politics when we have so many serious issues to address in real time.
Seriously, America, WTF?!?
Perhaps the primary reason that my erstwhile excitement is virtually completely subdued is that we’ve learned something especially troubling this week: that virtually half of our fellow citizens support the pathology and inhumanity of the current administration and voted to continue it.
Again, America, WTF?!?
So pardon me if it’s hard to be especially hopeful despite the historic significance of this week’s developments. It’s truly a good thing that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will be leading our country. It’s just sad that they’ll likely have to do so in the face of continuous, nihilistic and immoral obstruction.
And I really don’t want to be hurt again: as I read the words of Ta-Nehisi Coates a few years ago in a piece in which he essentially explained the inevitability of 45 as the backlash to 44, I realized that my faith in my country had been greatly shaken. That 45 has proven even worse than we expected has turned this from a painful bruise into a gaping, oozing wound that’s only partially healed by the likelihood of his being relegated to the dustbin of history soon. After all, the inhumans who’ve supported him are still very much here, as we’ve been reminded yet again this very week….
I’m hurting too much to hope now, but I have to: too many of the ancestors sacrificed so/too much, so I have to continue the fight to goad this country into living up to and into its professed creeds for the first time. America never has been the Land of the Free for so many of its citizens; now is the time to make this promise real.
It starts by acknowledging that…
Black Lives Matter,
Latinx Lives Matter,
Asian Lives Matter,
Indigenous Lives Matter,
Women’s Lives Matter,
LGBTQ+ Lives Matter,
Muslim Lives Matter,
Etc.
Then, and only then, when these move beyond being mere admirable sentiments and ambitions to becoming the experience of all of God’s children in this country, will we be able to say that, in alignment with our (aspirational but flawed) founding documents, truly, All Lives Matter.…
This victory alone is not the change we seek. It is only the chance for us to make that change. And that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were. It can't happen without you, without a new spirit of service, a new spirit of sacrifice. So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism, of responsibility, where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves but each other.
- President-Elect Barack Obama (November 4th, 2008)
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