From Someone who looks like me, to Someone who looks like Us
Four years ago, when the glass ceiling smashed to reveal Hillary Clinton at the Democratic Convention, I wept recognizing that the candidate was someone who looked like me. We all know how that worked out, in ways that none of us at the time could imagine. The self proclaimed pussy grabber was sworn in and the next day was the Women’s March. Not long thereafter came #Me too, followed by the President’s impeachment. Then this year, was a global pandemic and several cold blooded murders resulting in a summer fraught with the recurring, remaining trauma around our collective history.
2020 has become a perfect storm of possibility. Since the Vice- Presidential nomination of Kamala Harris, the exhilaration in the air has been palpable. The vibe and resolution of her acceptance speech was electrifying. But it comes not without peril. Biden has been quick to point out, that trash talk at its ugliest is one of Donald Trump’s specialties. To that end, we must prepare ourselves for when Trump’s campaign and those who traffic in discord do their damnedest to set us against each other.
Obliged to sell copy, the media will invite hair splitters and the debate of prejudice.
“So, how black is she really?” will be the opener, quickly followed with character flaws, and the tired but reliable comment that, “she’s just too ambitious…” and any other thing which might spark ratings.
It’s showtime, folks! Pundits and pollsters are ready to pile on for another round of that All-American favorite, “What Double Standard?” where we steel ourselves against dismantling females who have the power to change history. So, now is the time to come together. This time, we better be ready.
James Baldwin said, “History, as nearly no one seems to know, is not merely something to be read. And it does not refer merely, or even principally, to the past. On the contrary, the great force of history comes from the fact that we carry it within us, are unconsciously controlled by it in many ways, and history is literally present in all that we do. It could scarcely be otherwise, since it is to history that we owe our frames of reference, our identities, and our aspirations.”
Lest we forget, with the candidacy of Senator Harris we must rise above the typical girl on girl bitch-biting, pundit spinning, casting shade mean mindedness. The Trump years brought us Charlottesville, children in cages, tax breaks for billionaires, and a willful negligence of duty resulting in the death of more than 160,000 people from the pandemic.
“Wait a second!” the skeptics cry. “Those numbers are grossly exaggerated. It’s all a conspiracy! It’s a conspiracy to take down the President.”
Really?
If those numbers are a gross exaggeration, does that mean, Covid fatalities are closer to 80,000 or is it only 60,000? Because each death impacts someone else. Families, colleagues, friends, the economy. More painful still, is the naked truth that so many of those who died are people of color and that civil rights still have a long way to go.
Time and again, the opportunity for people (who are not white men) to initiate change has been co-opted. It happened after Reconstruction, it happened following such setbacks as the Dredd Scott trial in 1858, and Plessy vs. Ferguson in 1898, so long ago, that unless one knows history, few people care to summon these backward landmarks and bring them to light.
Nearly fifty years before the 19th Amendment was passed, when females could at last cast their votes, a young woman about the same age as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, declared herself a candidate for U.S. President. She argued that because women were citizens, because they paid taxes, they already had the right to vote and should not be prohibited from exercising that right. Not only did she believe in suffrage and equal rights for women, but she also supported the notion of a minimum wage and an eight-hour workday. However, Victoria Woodhull is a controversial character. Politically, she was way to the left, certainly further to the left than any elected official living today.
Unlike the wily Mrs. Woodhull, Senator Harris is a respected legislator and accomplished public servant. She is a shining example of someone who has seized possibility with ambition and used it for good. She isn’t afraid to face down the villains. She is someone who will help Americans change the course of history, to move the country forward, closer to the pledge that we are, “one Nation indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all.”
We are all in this together. Senator Harris’ smiling face might be anyone of us, black, brown, even white. What we share, what we have in common, is so much greater than that which pulls us apart. If you haven’t already done it, fill out that census. Make sure that you vote. America is counting on it.
