I've been giving the question of "so what now" going over it with a fine tooth comb. I've heard everything from mass protest, to boycotts of services online to just resigning to the new norm. I was trying very hard with every fiber of my being to stay away from the subject of politics but at this point there seems no getting away from it.
Politics is getting ready to touch our lives in a deeply personal way. There's simply no getting around it. Like many of you, I've struggled with the "hows", "whats" and "whys" of it all. Like it or not, we are in for a turbulent, chaotic next four years.
There's no getting around that either.
I often tell folks (or anyone that would listen) that I firmly believe that we have to go through the very worst to see us at our lowest point in humanity in order to get that much needed wake up call. Some people are perfectly content viewing themselves as the only species that exists and everyone else can take a back seat because they personally don't give a damn about you. Those people need the wake up call because like it or not, the world does not evolve around them.
Others are content to just sit back remaining in a state of shock and inaction. We don't know what to do to go on with the life we knew when the life we once knew is subject to change and spin out of control.
Others still are poised to fight. They know that what is happening will not just impact themselves but their children, and quite possibly their grandchildren. They know the world that they want to leave to them. That vision is one where we actually see one another. We acknowledge each other and believe that we can worship and love one another without meeting the criteria of sharing the same skin tone.
Above all, we value every human life where if one is harmed, all are harmed. It takes a village to raise a child but it takes a 'hood to take care of and nurture each other...adults included. Especially adults.
See, many folks are still angry even though their candidate won...and they are extremely glad that he will be inflicting pain on people that don't look like them. Many will sit idly by watching as families are ripped apart. They will watch as trans people are going to get repressed to the point of dying. Rights will be stripped away from the average citizen and they will sit on the sidelines until the powers that be come for them.
And this will happen. It just hasn't happened yet.
What we can do now is love one another and I mean truly love one another in a way that we've never loved before. We have to start there. Before we can take action, we have to allow ourselves to mourn, grieve and get caught up in our feelings. Only after that can we begin to strategize and begin to mobilize as a unit to help ourselves because we realize that the cavalry isn't coming.
In my walk with God, I have to learn how to walk within myself just so that I can then walk with the folks that love me...and hopefully, one day that will include people that don't love me for whatever reason.
Now to the folks that are not angry but really, deeply hurt.
Now is the time for us to feel what we feel together. We have to lift one another up because believe me, there will be a day when I will need you to lift this big black man up. My shoulders are only so broad.
We need to ensure that each and every one of us are okay and whatever we may need in the moment, we know that we are in a safe enough space to receive it. This is the gift of humanity.
Humanity is not lost as long as we remember that it still exists. For others, it may have just taken a long vacation. For now, it's okay. It has to be. But to keep our emotional and mental sanity, we acknowledge what has happened, and then we wrap ourselves around the real reason why we are upset.
It isn't because Kamala Harris lost. Not completely. It's what she represented. We had hope. We had the chance for equality. We had the chance to live in a world that we really wanted to be a part of...a world where we were free to simply be and exist in our own skin and not have to worry that somehow we were going to pay a price for it.
And it's not like we can't have that world...we just won't be having it today.
So listen folks, love one another. Cherish one another. Be there for one another. Listen to one another. Respect one another. Because this all come back to loving one another.
Because at the end of the day, that's what it's all about.
~ J.L. Whitehead
