I can’t lie. Wednesday morning I woke up afraid. Afraid of the reality of Donald Trump being our next president. Afraid of what could happen to those who are Black, Muslim, Latinx, LGBTQ, women, immigrants, etc. For a while, I felt defeated. Very, very defeated. For a while, I felt like the world was ending.
The reality of a Donald Trump presidency scares us, as it is a dangerous, scary reality for many of us. Trump isn’t even in office yet, and it’s already more dangerous for minorities. There have been reports on social media of attacks on people of color because of Trump’s win. Immigrants, both undocumented and documented, have no idea about their future in this country once Trump takes office.
It’s amazing to me how many well-meaning white people don’t understand how or why a Trump presidency has all of us fearful for our lives. Some people say that the worst thing about Trump is that he “says mean things.” What people don’t seem to realize is that words have power.
Language has power. Hateful, mean rhetoric, if spewed by the right people with the right type of power, regardless of truth, can become policy. That policy can then ultimately decimate the lives of entire groups of people. The Holocaust, Trail of Tears and the War on Drugs are just a few examples of this.
White progressives, I’m talking to you all for a second: You can help in creating a better tomorrow, but please stop trying to insert yourselves in our movements and our struggles. The best, most productive thing you can do to aid in the liberation of all oppressed people in this country is to go to your own communities and talk with other white people about the issues we go through. White people listen to other white people far quicker than they listen to non-whites.
But I digress. Yes, we are in a very bad place right now. It’s scary. But we can’t stay in a place of perpetual fear. That’s exactly what they want us to do. They would LOVE for us to wallow in defeat and despair. But that’s not going to happen.
Today, we mourn. Tomorrow, we rise.
These next four years will be hard. Actually, that’s an understatement.
These next four years will be excruciatingly difficult. We will have setbacks, we will have obstacles and walls to get around. But just like Assata Shakur said, “a wall is just a wall, and nothing more at all. It can be broken down.”
