Cadence and Landslides: The Luxury of Racial Naiveté
Four years ago yesterday, I woke up believing this country was ready to elect its first woman president. I challenged anyone who’d listen not just to defeat her opponent, but to defeat the conditions that gave him rise.
I admit: I underestimated the depth of US misogyny.
The current administration wasted no time slathering insults on top of political injuries. In the past four years, the breathless whispers through clutched pearls of “that’s not who we are” can be matched only by the wails in the past 24 hours of “I thought we were better than this.”
This is who this country has always been.
It has never been better than this.
If you are Black in the US you are ill-afforded the luxury of racial naiveté. We know this country better than it knows itself, because we’ve had to. Being hyper aware of authoritarian tendencies is just part of how we’ve survived centuries of oppression. We learned history that was never taught to us, occupied spaces, (including the Oval Office) never designed to accommodate us, and have consistently fought for the equality that’s been denied to us, under law.
If you are white and you’re reading this, it’s time to admit: you have. Got. To. Stop. Underestimating the depth of US racism.
Hundreds of millions of people here and around the world (you better believe the world is watching) are managing their disbelief today that the election of 2020 didn’t result in a democratic landslide.
230,000 dead and nine MILLION diagnosed with Covid-19. An economy facing the greatest depression in the nation’s history. A repugnant, impeached head of state; morally, politically, and financially compromised, with enough scandals and corruption to match the entire history of the union, combined. By any measure, this should have been no contest.
Unless you factor in just how deeply committed to racism the US is.
Consider an alternate reality where, instead of totally bungling the response to Covid-19, 45 and his ilk actually followed the Obama pandemic playbook. We’d have a few thousand dead, an economy that still functioned, and an incumbent who would have crushed any democratic opponent. It would have been an undeniable mandate on the soul of this nation.
Instead, and ONLY because he is as incompetent as he is callous, billions of people around the world are wondering if the light of democracy will be extinguished from the US.
I wonder if it’s ready to finally begin.
The cadence of this country; its pitch, modulation and harmonic resonance, is and has always been, racism. If you are JUST tuning in to this discordant frequency, if you woke up this morning battling despondency because the presidential election didn’t result in a democratic landslide, remember:
Land does not slide easily.
Masses of earth and rock and soil tend to settle. It’s only the erosion of underlying conditions over time that causes land to move downhill. A country literally built on stolen land with stolen labor settled on what it was and aspired to be, long ago.
If you’re ready, truly ready for seismic shifts, we must resolve to dissolve white supremacist structures which maintain the facade. Learn history you were not taught. Help nonwhite people to occupy spaces not designed for them. Fight for others to enjoy the freedom you are terrified of losing.
This country isn’t “better than this.” But it still could be.
