Biden's Election and POC Caution

 I spent the weekend talking with other POC about Biden's election. Everyone had the same vibe. It wasn't joy nor dread. The mood was of cautious encouragement. Someone compared America's hate problem to a terrible addiction. This country fell off the wagon, went on a 4-year bender, almost died, killed others in the rampage, and then staggered back into AA still bleeding and smelling of booze. You're not going to be like 'yah, you're saved' happy. You're more like 'okay, I'm glad you didn't die...that was close. You're back. This is day 1. You're still messed up. You still need to do a lot of work. I'm here for you...but I've also seen you fall off the wagon 400 other times so how do I balance motivating you to fight your illness without becoming toxic pessimist? How do I separate positive but slightly detached encouragement from the delusional joy of immediate salvation?' I feel like that is the balance POC are always trying to hold in this country. We are aware of subtext...even in uplifting moments.  Behind every mindless celebration I have a fear of America's impending national amnesia and a return to liberal thoughtlessness. Behind every expression of a weight lifted off our shoulders, I worry about the general consensus of 'a job done.' 

In 2008 I witnessed the most joyous election celebrations I have ever seen in my life. There was a sense of 'well that about raps up the racist/misogynistic/hateful part of America's history. Welcome to Post-racial America.'  The next day I was driving to the airport and tuned into right-wing talk radio. There was no joy. There wasn't even an acknowledgment of fault. The emotional switch was flipped to fear and blame. The talkshow host was hypnotically repeating the phrase that the current recession was now the fault of President-Elect Obama. He wanted his audience to get this mantra into their heads...the current economic collapse was now the fault of the guy who just won office 12 hours ago. He was responsible for all their woes and pains. And most white ppl gladly accepted the brainwash because 80 days later the first tea party rallies started. It was massive and happened immediately after Obama's Inauguration. Funded by the Koch Bros and marketed by Fox News, millions of enraged white people gathered around the country to commemorate the first black man being sworn in as president...by blaming him for the economy, taxes being too high, the end of the 2nd Amendment, and all the problems of the world. And it worked. It galvanized them, stymied full progress, gave them a sense of identity. Dems melted like warm butter, oozing out apologies and long-winded explanations that didn't matter against a screaming mob saying 'we. hate. you.' In the midterm elections, Dems got wiped out. Devastated. They lost seats in every state and on every level. Obama had 2 yrs of cautiously moving the ball forward followed by 6 yrs of fighting off a collective madness triggered the moment he won. I worry that Biden might not even get two years to fix these problems. Wall Street is betting on a stalemate government. 

This weekend I saw people celebrating and I wondered if we're going to go back to feckless obsequiousness toward white supremacy, right-wing rage, disinformation, and outright lies. Is this is just a brief pause in our slide toward ruin? 

Can enough good people stop a hate addict? The answer is absolutely not. An addict will find a way...penthouse or jailhouse, with a loving family or living on the street. You can't hide the bottle or dump the drugs in the toilet. The drug is streaming through every screen. The drug is intrinsically linked to their identity. The drug is linked to their birth, the foundation of their culture. At the same time, enough good people can keep the door open and offer support when (and if) someone wants to change? 

I want you to change, America. But I've seen you relapse so many times that I am wary of celebrating. I can't fix white Fox viewers who continually buy into outrageous lies without even doing a basic google search for facts. I can't fix people who dogmatically held the view that Obama was responsible for 9/11 or Hurricane Katrina or is apart of an international conspiracy to drain the blood of little children.  There is no compromise between racist lunacy and facts. But I worry that the Dems will try to find the middle ground and lose everything. Again.