Recently the unimaginable happened – the least likely candidate was elected to Presidency of the US. After my initial shock, disbelief and horror, I’ve been slowly coming to a perspective on this.
I’m an American born black female in my mid life. Born just a year beofre the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr in South Carolina, my upbringing was inseparable from the affect of white privilege and entitlement. There was little recourse for the unwelcomed inevitability of the life for those like me in this land once 90% populated by slaves.
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History class only drew on images of blacks as slaves or the exceptionally rare once in a million inventor. There was no one to speak to the day to day life of families like mine that were God fearing, disciplined, long suffering, fun-loving and strong. No one was speaking of the ravage of alcoho abuse, quiet sexual misconduct that was the secret ill or the disgust for the sense of disdain lavished on blacks merely because of the skin hue. No one would speak of the white teacher who rendered a damning college recomendation letter for me an A student in his advanced literature class. No one told of the miraculous yet less than glamours stories of those who beat the odds by remaining hopeful, pursuant, ambitious and resourceful. No one heralded the elder of our families who did more to defy the tirade of their imbalanced and unfair reality by just living to a ripe old age.
My historically black college was an institution which had a former life as a high school turned into a school of higher learning because few other options existed for blacks. This is the position from which I come to my current perspective.
I, like Michelle Obama, only felt a sense of pride for this country in 2008 with the election of our first black president. The years that followed I struggled with the voice from those of my community who reprimanded this symbolic icon for “not doing enough for our people.” I couldn’t understand how it was a proper move to expose to the only-too-ready-to disavow and exploit (not to mention not far enough removed from the demarcation of incompetent) white world the ugly dissension within our ranks. Yet, there it was. I held on to it, hoping that some day I might grow in wisdom enough to get it – but for years I did not understand.
Then the 2016 elections came. While I was initially intrigued by Bernie Sanders and his garish confrontation of the hypocrisy in politics, I leaned toward Hillary Clinton because in my mind she had a better chance of beating the not-for-black or the poor (mostly black) Republicans. As the campaign season progressed and the sea of candidates narrowed to one Republican candidate and one Democratic, I was never more sure of how I would vote.
The Republican candidate spewed extreme statements that were insensitive to most non-white voters and some divinely ordained white voters. In and odd fashion this Bernie Sanders doppelganger candidate had an allure to white voters (and some minority) but from an all-too-familiar disavowing place. It seemed that blacks and other historically non dominant people were being served up to those who felt cheated out of a rich future built on the backs of the enslaved. Yet there was something – like that rumble from the Blacks in response to the “neglect” of Obama- that needed to be understood more.
Then it came to me, after reading an article from an interview with President Obama. I came to an understanding that offered me the bigger perspective I had known was to come. 1) the success of the Republican candidate was largely attributed to his frank candor. His willingness to say any and everything he felt made people herald him as honorable, even if the things he was saying were deplorable and unacceptable. His support rallied from many communities (white and black) that felt like they could no longer blindly trust smooth talking romanticism like Obama. Those who had come through campaigning for support from those rural, marginalized, less visible electorate had earned their trust and then marched back to the more detached, lofty and visible affluents who could with less effort sustain their platform. From this lens I could see how a presumed straight shooter can compete. I can now see how the Republican candidate looked so appealing in this legacy of bait and switch. Obama seemed to be just as guilty as others and Hillary did not stand a chance given how publicly she was shown to “fake-the-funk” around her husband’s (the then US president) adulterous sex scandal. And as if that wasn’t enough Michelle Obama sold out and began campaigning for this front when she took her stand so visibly for Hillary. The gig is up, for all your good intentions. It is time to take a stand and find a truer even if more fragile place to build your strength and that for your nation. 2) It is no longer sufficient to sit back and wait for someone to invite you to residence in this country. You no longer can allow your reality to be defined by the acceptance or non exclusion of others or the creation of a space for you by those who presume to be positioned by power or politics to do so. You must move beyond the assault and neglect of your former nation and declare your freedom to be fully free and fully occupant of God’s ordained existence for you in this land. This is the gift and the price of standing for truth above all
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