That poor excuse for a human being is going to the White House again. And I was thinking about him as I played with Jackson, my youngest grandson, the other day because at the same time my mind was also buzzing frantically with a myriad of contemplations concerning the election, wondering what we, as a nation, if he was to win, and, regarding his victory, I heard a pundit say, to my disgust, “This is not us” and my reaction to that misconception was “Oh, yes, it is!!!” and one of the first things we Americans should do about it is admit to ourselves that this election reflected our racist tendencies to a tee. Hating because of race is in the country’s DNA, along with sexism and homophobia, I might say. And we, apparently, like it that way based on my eight-plus-decades living in the USA. I mean a Black woman candidate offered us joy and hope and expertise that was just what we need to move our society towards more progressive ways to live together both socially and politically and she was grilled about what she has done or hasn’t done or what her policies regarding important issues might look like, much like a detective trying to get a confession from a suspect. There was no reason whatsoever, based on the choices we had, for her not to have won the presidency but because of our inclination to discriminate we chose a notorious racist and sexist White man who has, with eyes on him, like a carnival barker, jeopardized the lives of young Black men and separated brown babies from their families and put them in cages and banned Muslims and shucked and jived about Haitian immigrants, who were documented and legalized, eating cats and dogs, and bragged about grabbing women by their sexual organs and taking away a woman’s right to tend to her medical needs with the Supreme Court of the United States backing such deplorable deeds, all extremely dangerous stumbling blocks to keeping a progressive-minded democracy alive. They peck away at a government by the people like birds of prey dining on field mice. So, it is incumbent upon us, for the sake of human decency, to address our bigoted tendencies and model for Jackson and his generation and future generations new ways of being, new ways of seeing things, showing them how to construct bridges between them and their fellow human beings, how to love and appreciate dark-skinned folks, as together we can be as beautiful and colorful as a rainbow and how to embrace women folk, their mothers and grandmothers and sisters and aunties, and how to accept the queer folks that exist in humanity. What would come after all such as that would be more harmony in the world. Because by working together there’s a better chance for the survival of all of humankind because the brutal storms and temperatures that will come with the rapid climate changes up ahead have no idea what your pronoun is and they are colorblind. My little dude, Jackson, and his generation will put this country in order someday if we put the how to’s in motion in their questioning minds. Let’s do it.
Ernie McCray is an activist for love and peace who acts and sings and writes both poetry and prose, a man who rises each day to do whatever he can, no matter how small or grand, to make the world better in some way.
Unapologetically.