Pyrrhic Victories in Racial Justice Don’t Count Anymore
On November 7, 2020, the election was called for Joe Biden. On November 8, 2020, Eva Longoria conducted an interview in which she said that Latino women were the real heroes of the election. The population in the United States is roughly 330 million. To give her half a point, Black people are 12% of the population, meaning that if there were no Black people in prison, and every Black person were able to healthily engage without effort, that would be 39.6 million “guaranteed” votes for Democrats. Latinx people are 18% of the population, which means that if none of them were traumatized by cages and forced to homes where they could be unfamiliar with the languages, and all of them were allowed to leave the fields they have been forced to work to keep our food cheap, that would be a guaranteed 59.4 million “guaranteed” votes for Democrats.
The problem is that 71 million people voted for Cult45, and that number is bigger than both. Those voters are still likely in positions of power, despite what people want to believe. Eva Longoria’s nonchalance is a small demonstration of three things to expect with the Biden/Harris presidency. First, White people will still get whatever they want, with the expectation of non-White approval and exploitation. Second, lighter-skinned “representatives” will be allowed to say whatever they want about their races with impunity. Finally, anyone who feels alienated by the first two observations will be expected to go along to get along because everyone wants to smile and win, and no one cares about the consequences.
People love to gloss over how much emotional abuse is allowable in this nation. Many people had no interest in the president-elect, but because of the obsession with Cult45, many people — just enough, apparently — were forced to comply with the choice of the Democratic National Convention. Anyone who had any grievance was told they were traitors to themselves and their races if they refused to participate. To put it more succinctly, because I chose to disengage with corporate ideology I do not condone, I deserve to be forcibly sterilized without my knowledge. Any non-White people who chose to disengage, according to the dominant narrative, deserve to have the police weaponized against them while a company poisons their water and air for profit. This type of brainwashing is allowed because we value control in this country, not compassion. I have already cried several times because of this “win” because I know that justice will not be a concern due to the fervent belief that Cult45 is an anomaly, with a majority of “good people.”
Compliance is not the bar for inherent worth. Telling people that they have to self-negate in order to achieve self-worth is abusive. For example, if I decide that I am uninterested in sex on a date, does that give my date the right to rape me? No, even if my date and I had heated up the texts and phone calls all day and sit naked in one of our beds. In policy terms, a city does not have the inherent right to bulldoze a community just because a developer has an idea for a building and a neighborhood wants improvements. Consent is not just applicable to sex, and many people had many complaints about the choices being presented, even the independent options. Telling people that they have to make a choice whether they want it or not is not autonomy. Remember, 230,000 people had to die while the cities had to teem with racial justice protests just for the razor-thin win of Biden/Harris.
Furthermore, compliance is no indication that people will respect the disenfranchised and stop subjugating them. The Black voter block could not enjoy 48 hours of dignity without someone attempting to negate them, and the excessive celebration has included the mockery of anyone who felt alienated by the choices presented. Black and brown people have received all the earmarks of what is meant to fulfill the “American dream,” and we are still the most vulnerable during times of crises because it is more enjoyable to negate our efforts than to acknowledge them. Jared Kushner’s belief that Black people need a stronger desire for success has been echoed by more liberal people in the city of Austin, Texas than I care to remember. Even when we comply, do the work, make the effort, seal the deal, or whatever label, we still need to be considered beneath the winners of the dominant narrative.
I believe in the abolition of several things because I advocate for liberation, but one big item on my list is the abolition of political parties. What if the people were forced to choose someone without a party affiliation and simplistic ideology? What if people actually had to look at a candidate without expected backers and without the “consistency” of party politics? What if someone existed without everyone else validating that individual, and we only looked at what the person actually did, instead of discussed? Who would we vote for and how would politics look? No can finish an Ultraman triathlon without signing up for the race, training for it, and racing it. If people can only plan for a wedding of this nation and have no vision of the marriage, the alienated populace needs to stop dating and start blocking. The myth that an election is magically going to change the behavior of 330 million people, 71 million of which would have gladly continued the havoc that existed, is unhelpful. The toxic positivity that brought us to the point of lite fascism will not solve the problems of today.
