When Barack Obama won the Presidential election in 2008, I cried. I wept for my ancestors who toiled over the years as slaves, domestics, and farmers. I sobbed for my grandfathers and uncles who spent their lives working for less pay than their white counterparts in the most perilous and toxic jobs at steel mills in Pittsburgh. All of whom persevered because they remained steadfast in their beliefs that there’s dignity in hard work, and that the country would ultimately become a place where all people would be treated equal. You see, an unyielding belief in progress is really what keeps black folks in America from going insane and Obama’s tremendous accomplishment symbolized the fruit of my people’s suffering and served as a respite from the madness of subjugation. For that, I will always love him.
However, if “Obeezy” (what my daughter calls him) would have conspired to overturn a presidential election by cheating, scheming, lying, and commanding a now documented violent insurrection like Donald Trump did in 2020, I would not love Barack Obama. I would rebuke all things Obama, renounce his accomplishments and never hold his name in high regard. I know this because those actions would shame the very souls that sacrificed before him for a better day. It would contradict the very fabric of my existence and denigrate the meaning of being an American.
So, now I ask all people who call themselves Republicans, or who wrap themselves up in the American flag, and who seem so terribly concerned about being replaced by black and brown people, please preserve our country by accepting the truth. Inform your nativist brethren that Trump lost the election fair and square. Stand up for honest politics, more than raw power. Love our democracy more than the evil, orange man because one man is not greater than our country or constitution.
Call me naïve for asking, but I am desperate. Our world is literally on fire, the streets are in chaos, disinformation reigns, and I don’t want to be burned alive. The 45th President, gerrymandering, the Supreme Court, Fox News, and the Doug Mastriano’s of our country can’t change those facts or bully the nation into an alternative reality. Social and economic correction is inevitable. Get over it. Generate new ideas that appeal to the changing society.
It’s time to do the right thing before the country is torn asunder.