All Is Not Forgiven

What the 2020 Presidential Election says about America.

Election Day Is Traumatizing

Election Day is triggering for me.

Four years ago, on Election Day, my previous job fired me after I’d done nearly two years of service. Their reasons were vague. “It’s not working out.” I’ve long ceased ruminating over the real reason.

After losing my job, I’d gone to vote, then laid low for the rest of the day. I went to bed around 1 am that night, confident that the candidate I voted for, Hillary Clinton, would win. When I woke up the next day around 8 am, I found out through social media that Donald Trump won, plunging me into a living nightmare. Enraged and saddened by the result, I did not leave the house for several days and barely ate.

For nearly four years, I went about my business as well as I could. I tried to ignore the daily assaults on my intelligence, common sense, and compassion. Along with the rest of the American people, I was relentlessly lied to, told that we couldn’t trust our own eyes, ears, or reasoning. Every day brought new outrages. Many of us resorted to the same childish tactics we were exposed to— inspired and encouraged by the most childish and inept President in American history.

Before COVID-19 swarmed our country, so sure that Trump would remain as the White House resident for the next four years, I debated whether it would even be worthwhile for me to vote.

Donald Trump is not my President. Never was and never will be as he does not represent me. I don’t refer to him by that honorific title, as I don’t feel he deserves that level of respect. I have numerous derogatory terms for him. Drumpf, Cheetolini, Cult 45, and Orange Clown are my favorites.

Regarding this year’s presidential election, although I voted for Joe Biden, I prepared myself to be disappointed again because I never underestimate the stupidity of my fellow Americans. But after four excruciating days, four years of misery, fear, anxiety, and anger dissipated when news outlets called Pennsylvania for Joe Biden and he was elected President.

People in my apartment building banged pots and pans and I heard shouting. Some people cried tears of joy. I felt an enormous sense of relief. Let’s be clear, racism, misogyny, and queerphobia aren’t going to disappear on January 20, 2021, when Biden takes office. The systems that oppress a significant portion of our population are too entrenched for that. So, where those things are concerned, I have to stay focused and keep fighting until justice and equity become real.

Right now, I’m directing my wrath toward the 70 million people who voted for Trump.

Trumpian Priorities

That narcissistic, bigoted, fascist clown lied about and ignored a dangerous pandemic. He chose to do nothing to stem the 9 million and growing cases of COVID. He shows no empathy toward the nearly quarter of a million people who’ve died from the illness. He has Mexican children torn from their parents and locked in cages. He instituted a ban on Muslims, preventing them from coming into this country. He incited white supremacists to stand down and stand by. The list of outrages and misdeeds could fill a novel.

71 million people saw all that incompetence, all that bigotry, all that unprofessionalism, and decided that they wanted another hit of it. It’s beyond unreal. It tells me that their main concern is preserving white supremacy at all costs. It tells me that they believe that I don’t matter. It tells me that this country is filled with nasty, selfish and hateful people.

If anything, that clown made inroads with every demographic except for white men in this election. Unbelievably, he got a few million MORE votes than he did in 2016. As to what would possess some BIPOC to vote for him when he has routinely demonized our communities, many believe that internalized racism is at its root, but in my opinion, that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

While they prove that voting against their own interests isn’t limited to white people, their reasons go relatively deep. They want to grab any ticket to whiteness or white adjacency they can get while choosing to forget that once white MAGAS get all they want out of them, they’ll cast them aside and call them niggers and spics behind their backs.

The Danger of Trumpism to Black and Brown People

Trump’s toxic masculinity appealed to Black and Latinx men in particular, which highlights the fact that misogyny and queerphobia aren’t discussed often enough in our communities. Too often, our men frame the issues that primarily affect them, such as police brutality and criminal justice reform, as issues for all Black and Latinx people.

However, issues that affect primarily Black or Latinx women or Black or Latinx LGBTQIA people are met with silence from cisgender, heterosexual Black and Latinx men.

For instance, Black women are several times more likely to die in childbirth than white women. Undocumented Latinx women are currently experiencing forced sterilization near the border with Mexico. Black and Latinx women experience higher rates of domestic violence and sexual assault than white women. Black transwomen are murdered at a rate far higher than other groups of transwomen. Many of these ills are often committed by men who look like us and/or claim to love us-our fathers, brothers, uncles, husbands or boyfriends.

Black and brown women’s experiences indicate that patriarchy wields a heavy hand among our people. Because our men benefit from oppressing us, they have no incentive to address the toxic masculinity that harms us all. Instead, Black and brown men demand those of us who are not cishet men to choose between our race, gender, or sexuality. I’m not standing for that shit anymore. I can’t and won’t separate my race from my gender or sexuality as all of my identities make up what I am.

Not only do white people not regard me as human, Black men and MOC often don’t either. Too often, I’m merely a plaything to them. It leaves me with few allies, but I prefer to walk alone than be among snakes at this point in my life.

The Damage that Trumpism Wrought

Biden did get 74 million and counting votes, so there was a record turnout. But the country is deeply divided. I can’t forgive or forget many of those 71 million people who voted for Trump four years ago. Because they were the ones who caused me to exist in a living hell for nearly four years.

They caused me to distrust my white friends and make me wonder if they viewed me as equal to them. Due to the callousness of Trump supporters, I vowed to stop befriending white people because a part of me will always wonder if they support him, even though I live in a blue city. People who never would have displayed their racism openly before were encouraged by their cult leader to denigrate any of their neighbors who weren’t white. So doing even the simplest things such as going to the store took on a level of exhaustion I’d never experienced before because I exist in Black skin.

For nearly four years, my sense of not belonging in this country increased several folds, even though I was born here. My parents and grandparents were born here. In fact, my family has been in this country for at least eight or nine generations, far longer than some of these white folx families who despise me. As a result, I’ve hated this country. I’ve felt ashamed of being American.

As for a fraction of previous Trump voters who voted for Joe Biden this time, doing the right thing by this country now doesn’t absolve them. Because I see them for who they are. They’re the type of people who’ll only do what is expedient. They didn’t care about Trump’s bigotry or incompetence until shit got real for them. Some of them may have lost their jobs. Or they or their loved ones contracted COVID. Or even died from it. Their mea culpa of a vote doesn’t erase the four years of hell I’ve been through.

Why I Can’t Forgive

I’m now told that I should try to find common ground with Trump voters for “the good of the country.” But I see that as toxic positivity as it ignores the pain and trauma they caused me.

As a Black person who’s been conditioned from birth to forgive white people for subjecting me to their violence, uniting with hateful bigots is something I can’t do. Because forgiveness is akin to allowing white people’s racism to continue unchecked. Forgiveness essentially tells the world that I accept their mistreatment of me. That’s something that my soul violently rejects. It’s long past time for them to reckon with the damage they’ve done to me and my people. Starting with Donald Trump.

The fact that this election was close even though one of the candidates is supremely unqualified shows how broken our people are. Trump voters won’t accept his defeat as legitimate and won’t acknowledge Joe Biden as their President. Normally, I wouldn’t pay that any mind. After all, some people refused to consider Barack Obama as President.

But Trump has brainwashed and incited these people to levels unmatched in our history. Some of them have guns. And some will terrorize me or my people with little provocation. So even with Biden’s victory, I still have to keep my guard up and I resent that I still have to.

It’ll likely take far longer than four years for Biden to undo the immense damage that has been done to this country. So while I feel relief now, this victory is bittersweet. And all is not forgiven.