Black people have seen this America before. We have endured throughout history’s progress and regress, watching the arc of justice bend with the changing winds. Until we reckon with our fellow citizens’ capacity — even hunger — for injustice, we will fail to meet, understand and survive this political moment. What I mean by that is the ability of some Americans (historically, almost all of them white, though increasingly there are multiethnic fellow travelers in MAGA these days) to burn this country to the ground before they share it with those deemed other and unworthy. I also mean how long it takes for almost everyone else to wake up to the danger these people pose not only to Black people but, yes, to everyone else, too.
Again, Black people are not surprised. Far too many well-meaning white Americans have been what I like to call ally ostriches, believing in progress while burying their heads in the sand when discussions around the past become uncomfortable. Or newer Americans, perhaps the children of immigrants of recent decades, who don’t see what business it is of theirs what violence slave owners or Jim Crow enforcers visited on their fellow citizens or the legacy of it. And now some of them are seeing people who look like them summarily deported. How did this happen?
Every day I hear, spoken by these ostriches but also, increasingly, by those who blithely voted for Mr. Trump, thinking he didn’t intend to actually do those things he said he would do, or who just couldn’t bring themselves to vote for a Black woman or who feel some version of disbelief. As if the America of chattel slavery, of Native American expulsion and attempted extermination, of reckless imperial expansion, of Jim Crow, of internment camps was echoed by authoritarian regimes across the globe in the past. I find myself reminding those who are surprised by this moment that my still very spry mother attended legally mandated segregated schools her entire life. The past has somehow turned into prologue, and the head-scratching of many tells me there is a fundamental lack of understanding of this country and what Americans are capable of. No, dear ostriches, not all Americans. But enough and often enough.
And in the midst of this fear and real threats to democracy, most Black people are not only not surprised but also tired out by explaining why all of this is not surprising. (And yes, I am aware there are a few Black ostriches, too.) That is why many of the 92 percent of Black women who have been the keepers of the Democratic Party and democracy writ large have been resoundingly silent. Why did no one listen to us?
People like Stacey Abrams, Vice President Kamala Harris and Representative Maxine Waters walked all of us through the political, social and economic ramifications of a second Trump term. Higher Heights for America mobilized for candidates across the country to help energize and educate the electorate. We talked about how what happens to the least of us could most definitely happen to the rest of us. The stories of the past horrors have been passed down. We know what has happened, and we see what is happening around us. However, at the moment, many Black women I know are taking a moment for ourselves.
#Opinion #Black #Americans #Surprised #Trumps
