Today is January 16, 2021, we are 4 days away from inaugurating the 46th President of the United States, President-Elect Joe Biden. We are also set to inaugurate the first female Vice President, Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris, who also happens to be a person of color. This should be a joyous event. The peaceful transfer of power from one administration to the next, with historical firsts.
As a person of color, when President Obama was elected in 2008, I felt as if anything was possible. That the world was finally able to see that people who looked like me had value, that we were not all thugs, that we were not lazy, that we were not looking for handouts. We just wanted to be allowed to be part of the conversation, to have the ability to show that we are more than the stories that are told about us. I saw a highly educated man of color, devoted to his wife, his kids, and his country. I saw a man who was not perfect, but at every turn, displayed calm respect even in the face of people who saw him as nothing but a black man above his station.
I heard the whispers, and at times the not-so-quiet voices ridicule him at every turn. They said that he, a Protestant Christian, was not Christian; and that he, with a B.A. from Columbia University and a J.D. from Harvard Law, was not smart; that he, born in Hawaii, was not American; and stranger yet, that his wife was actually a man. They complained when he wore a tan suit or when his wife showed her arms. Still, he never let this put him on the defensive, and through it all, he remained a symbol of hope for people like me.
In 2016 I saw that a woman, Hillary Clinton, was on the Presidential ticket, and I thought, America is really turning into a place where anything is possible. Where a black man or a woman can rise to the highest office, and I felt happy to be a part of all of it all. I saw this and I thought that America was really becoming beautiful.
I’ll admit, I was not a fan of Donald Trump, and like most, I underestimated his ability to charm so many people. I felt a bit blindsided when he won, still, I remained hopeful. I was aware of how our government works, and I was certain that once in office, he would learn what was necessary to do the job. I had hope in our system of government and government officials, being by and for the people.
Others were not as hopeful, there were peaceful marches throughout the world, a sea of pink hats calling for women to be heard; and a sea of black shirts and black lives, asking to matter. They were not happy, so they marched for change, they sat for change, they got shot for change, and some died for change.
I was so naïve.
Here we are, days before Donald Trump is to leave office, and we’ve yet to have him concede the election. Instead, we’ve had him declare, even before a third of the votes were counted, that he’d won the election, by a lot. We’ve had his lawyers file and lose approximately 60 court cases claiming fraud. Time after time, video after video, case after case, recount after recount, it has been proven that there was no election fraud to the extent that it could overturn the results of the elections. In the end, Joe Biden received 81,283, 485 popular votes, and 306 electoral votes, while Donald Trump received 74,223,744 popular votes and 232 electoral votes.
The results under normal circumstances would be noteworthy, both candidates received a record number of votes. Respectable, by all accounts. However, the results are made more noteworthy because of the record number of people who voted during a pandemic.
People came out in droves, some voted early, others opted to mail in their ballots. Some put their lives on the line, risking illness to be counted.
You see, the world is currently in the midst of a pandemic, COVID-19 is spreading fast, with hundreds of thousands of people dead, in the United States alone, and millions are infected. Some people are afraid to leave their homes, while others believe this is just another “hoax” or “fake news”.
The numbers alone show the resiliency of the American people, willing to risk their lives for the sake of our democracy. This is a beautiful thing, right? It should be.
However, there were no congratulations for a well-fought election. No, we’ll run again next year. Instead, it was as if a match had been lit.
In the span of four years, people began saying the quiet parts out loud and oftentimes, violently. Running over protestors, shooting unarmed black people, charging our Capitol building with a confederate flag and attempting to overthrow our government.
What happened America?
People are calling an Anti-Fascist movement (ANTIFA), fascist, violent terrorist. They are calling the Black Lives Matter Movement, terrorists full of criminals and thugs. They call the Women’s March anti-Semitism masked as activism and Democrats are apparently pedophilic, Satan-worshipping, cannibals (I kid you not). All the while, an angry mob dressed in riot gear storm the Capital building, equipped with Molotov cocktails, flex cuffs, and bombs, with intent to kidnap and kill a bunch of government officials, all to keep the government from doing its sworn duty of counting and certifying the results of a free and fair election all to keep Trump in office … these guys are the patriots, the good guys, the all-American heroes.
America, what have we become?
This not okay. Whatever your views on politics are, whatever you think about our election or immigrants or people of color, this is not okay.
It’s been more than 240 years and we are still fighting the same fights, the us vs. them. Willing to kill our brothers, our friends, our neighbors just for a larger slice of the pie. To be able to say that “I am better than you”, but at what cost and to what end?
Everything we love about our country is in jeopardy if we are unable or unwilling to find a way to live with each other.
History shows that there will always be an us vs. them, so even if we got everything we wanted now… what next? Who will your next “them” be, maybe it will be you?
In the grand scheme of things, all of this is meaningless. It’s an infinite loop of us and them and in the end, we will either find a way to get along or we will destroy each other.
Is this the America the beautiful that our forefathers envisioned? Granted, they likely did not envision it being so colorful and diverse.
Imagine how beautiful we could be if instead of trying to destroy each other we came together. To talk, to listen, to learn… not through the media or through politics, but through our own eyes. We (after this pandemic is over), leave the comforts of our sheltered lives and go beyond neighborhoods, and do something that makes us a bit uncomfortable. We talk to that person of color, hear the stories of our ancestors on opposite sides, share a meal with someone that you’d never given a second look. Slow down, open your eyes, and think for yourselves.
In the end, we will all stand alone, and our stories will be told by what we left behind. What will your legacy? What will be the story of America? Will it be a beautiful beacon of hope, or will it be a sad memory of a failed democracy?
When we read these words inscribed on the Statue of Liberty, "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore”, there is no “ifs or buts” at the end. No additional qualifiers with regard to race, language, social or political status. We are supposed to be better than our fathers, and their fathers … we are the descendants of those who saw America as a melting pot, and we are still fighting the same wars they were fighting to leave behind.
America was founded on a set of beliefs, among them was the idea that all people are created equal, whether European, Native American, or African American, and that these people have fundamental rights, such as liberty, free speech, freedom of religion, due process of law, and freedom of assembly. These concepts were openly discussed among America’s revolutionaries, many of which agreed with them, but some found that the ideology was far more acceptable in the abstract than in practice. Here we are more than 240 years later, and we still can’t figure it out.
America, tell me this… are we beautiful yet?