What the Biden-Harris Win Means to Me
Photo courtesy of Meghan McCormick
Like many folks out there, we will always remember the day when Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won the White House. On Saturday November 7th, (the fourth day after Election Day) most people were either A) glued to their couch watching the news and constantly updating their news feed or B) Doing everything BUT being glued to their couch watching the news and constantly updating their news feed. I was B. I needed something to feel good so I took myself and my dog for a long run on the quiet side of the island. No one to run into to engage in election chat, just the salty sea breeze and swaying palms lining the roads. When I reached home, sweaty and out of breath, I got a FaceTime call from my mom. “WE WON. JOE WON. JOE BIDEN IS THE NEXT PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES!” my mom shouted through her tears. “FINALLY!” I exclaimed as I slumped my sweaty self on the couch.
“Well it’s easier to be a parent this morning,“ Vance Jones started as my mom flipped her camera to CNN. “It’s easier to be a dad this morning. It’s easier to tell your kids, ‘Character matters, telling the truth matters, being a good person matters’...” I had to take a few moments to let it sink in. The Biden Harris ticket won. Decency won. Compassion won. The regard for humanity won.
In the background of the video I could hear people on my street in Brooklyn shouting and celebrating. Across the ocean, I felt that release. I felt the exhale of people holding their breath waiting for the possibility of four more years. Our chests were no longer half puffed up, expecting the worst. Time and time again over this presidency we have faced trauma of varying degrees, getting our hopes up to just get them shattered with the unthinkable.
Following the news, I did like most people– I cracked open my “special occasion” beer, shouted a lone “WOOHOO” on my porch then I sat on the couch scrolling through TikToks, tweets, and posts to add to my Instagram story. For once, the political memes I consumed that day did not leave me with a ‘smile on the outside crying of shame and trauma on the inside’ kind of feeling as they have the past four years. Instead, I was smiling of joy because... WE. DID. THAT.
As I scrolled through videos and images of people crying and folks cathartically dancing by Fort Greene park just down the street from my childhood home, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of melancholy. I was happy that Trump was not re-elected, I wasn’t ecstatic about a Biden presidency, I was OVER THE MOON about VP-elect Kamala Harris, but I was also skeptical about what the results meant for America... 70,831,096 people voted for Trump. If I could write that number again in caps I would. The fact that 57% of white people and 55% of white women voted for Trump hung heavy for me. Robin Thede said it best, “To be clear, this wasn’t a presidential election, it was just a survey on how much this country loved racism and most white people checked the box for ‘very satisfied.’” I, like many folks of color, voted because our literal existence depended on it.
Photo courtesy of New York Times
There should have been no reason that nearly 71 million Americans voted for a racist, transphobic, homophobic, xenophobic, mysoginst (list can go on but #charactercount) who is seeking to destroy our climate as a side hustle and said “it is what it is” when over 200,000 Americans died from COVID. Trump normalized inhumanity and injustice. By the transitive property, people who voted for Trump are also racist, transphobic, homophobic, xenophobic, mysoginstic and cool about a guy in the White House destroying our planet with a non challant attitude toward human life.
The election of 2020 was a freebie sent from above for people who voted for Trump in 2016 to get a do-over and say “I’m sorry,” to everyone that has had to endure his presidency. But the fact that more people voted for him in this election compared to 2016 was terrifying. The numbers themselves “shine a light on the truth that America is unyielding in its injustices and deeply committed to its fabricated idea of whiteness” Rachel Elizabeth Cargle stated. America is broken. America is divided. America is not one nation.
Of all the countries that have faced atrocities such as slavery, stealing children, genocide, mass sterilization, putting people into prison camps, etc. America is one of the few (maybe the only) to not acknowledge the past and have a political leader say, “I’m sorry.” Why is it that people are calling the Black Lives Matter movement anti-American as if to be anti-racist is to be anti-American? In order for us to heal as a nation, we need to acknowledge our history and our systems that are designed to lift one set of people up while keeping everyone else down.
You do not need to be Black to be anti-racist. You do not need to be a woman to be a feminist. You do not need to be Native American to believe in Indigenous people’s rights. You do not need to be LGBTQIA+ to believe love and freedom of expression win. To see everyone as they are, as people deserving of equality and respect is the most human thing we can do.
I identify as a cis mixed race woman of color. Unlike many people, in 2018 I had the opportunity and the privilege to leave the US and move to my dad’s home country of Saint Vincent & the Grenadines. No longer was I living the trauma of the American experience but rather watching it from afar. But, I still felt its weight. Although I live in a predominantly black country, the trauma of racism still hangs heavily on my shoulders. As I watched the saturation of events in the US unfold from March with the case of Breonna Taylor to the most recent murdering of an innocent Black person, I found myself getting smaller and smaller. People’s racism in America was finally showing because they were validated to let it ALL HANG OUT Winnie the Pooh style. For most of my life, I have been told directly or subliminally that my opinions and my presence does not matter. That I was less than. That I was a token to meet the diversity quota.
At the end of the night, I watched Kamala Harris give her speech to millions of Americans nationwide on NBC. As she addressed her mother, Shyamala Gopalan Harris, she also paid homage to the many “women who fought and sacrificed so much for equality and liberty and justice for all, including the black women who are too often overlooked, but so often prove they are the backbone of our democracy.” For the first time in American politics I felt seen. I felt acknowledged. I felt like someone was going to stand up for me. I felt like I could come home again. For the first time in a long time, America symbolized hope and possibility.
It is going to be a long 73 days (who’s counting?) until January 20, 2021 when Biden and Harris will be sworn into office. A lot is dependent on the runoff in Georgia to determine the control of the Senate. But I am hopeful. This election has shown us that when BIPOC show up, we make a change. It is important to acknowledge politicians are not celebrities, they are public servants for the people who elected them. Let this be a reminder that we are the ones that make change possible. We are the ones that can put into existence that which we hope for the world. There is so much work to do, but this moment matters.
You are capable of so much change.