Three Out of Five
“Three Out of Five: A Reflection”
It is three fifteen in the morning.
The day after the election.
I promised myself I would not watch the news last night, but I sneaked it in for just a few minutes, which was a mistake, and then things started happening.
I had a somatic response to looking at the numbers of people who STILL voted for Trump after all he has done to fuck up this country and the world as we know it.
Yesterday while running errands and listening to NPR before going to the dog park with Akua, I kept translating the stats that were being analyzed about the probability of what would happen in the election. Everything sort of jibed with what I have been saying for weeks and months about white people in America, maybe even years. For BIPOC in this country, out of every five white people you meet, expect that only two will be genuine and sincere, then there are two who will be dyed-in-the-wool racists, and then there is the one who seems okay even though they will hide their feelings about you, race and anything critical to your survival or advancement. Actually, these are the motherfuckers who sit at the policy tables making sure you are not treated fairly, that you don’t get what you have worked so hard to achieve, that you will never have more than them. But they smile at you and have drinks with you. They lunch with you and sit on crowded beaches with you sharing beers and beverages. They invite you to the cookouts at their homes, sharing burgers with their relatives from Texas and Montana to display their progressive inclusion and show their racist relatives how to have Black friends. They appear to be your friends, but you are not in the voting booth with them, and they have not been honest enough to tell you what they really think about the issues. These are the fence-sitters. You really can’t trust them. You work with them. They teach your children. You go to church with them. They will talk a good game, but they are not relinquishing their white privilege! They live in the tony neighborhoods that were deliberately created as cul-de-sacs and dead-end streets to mimic private estates and family compounds. They are the ones on condo boards who vote against including BIPOC in their buildings. These are the ones who do not stand up to other whites. The men who hear the n-word all the time but never call out their friends and relatives. They may be even more dangerous than the two you know are truly racists. Racism and white supremacy go hand-in-hand. They are glued together, stuck together like peanut butter and jelly on white bread. Once you make the sandwich, you really can’t pull it apart; you can’t separate the parts and pieces.
They are stuck.
As I listen to the polling and reflect on the stats, I am well aware that they have not included a lot of Black and brown people in the surveys they rely on. I give them credit for trying, but so often they miss the mark. They reported from one poll that something like less than thirty percent of the people polled see racism as a critical issue in this country that should be given attention and concern. COVID is at the top of their list (health) along with the economy (jobs). They want to be healthy and working. The other important social issues like homelessness, unemployment, and food security that plague lower-income citizens, do not really register on their radar. They show, in these polls, that most white people want to normalize what Trumpers see as “America.” They have hoodwinked many of our Latinx brothers and sisters, especially in Florida and Texas. Who knows what was put in the fucking Kool-Aid they drank. They forgot what happened at the borders to their brown brothers and sisters, mothers and daughters, fathers and sons. Maybe they didn’t forget. Maybe they think that with “colorism” they will be “accepted” and invited to the “picnic” where they will sit quietly and not rally when they hear things they know are racist, homophobic, misogynistic, and downright evil. Like many of our Asian and Pacific Island brothers and sisters, they may be seeking ways to snake into the system, stand next to whites and reap the great benefits of this once-powerful and justice-focused America. Dog-faced Mitch McConnell is married to a Chinese woman who has a Cabinet post in the Trump administration AND channeled millions of dollars from projects in Kentucky (Moscow Mitch’s territory) to her family in China. She has certainly helped his wealth increase over the years. Right after he was elected to the Senate his net worth was a little over two million; now it is upwards of twenty-six million. And white people keep their eyes closed. They know what is going on, but they are quiet about it. Our government, populated in Congress by attorneys, is a trough where the ‘ho’es go to eat and drink. Our government is controlled by white “boys” who learn the game early in life. They are taught in very subtle ways, but they catch on quickly; white boys don’t tell on each other. It is a shell game, a Ponzi scheme. A place where the rogues and grifters can graze and get rich. A place for them to get more money to throw into their coffers of generational wealth. A game where you have to be a hypocrite if you are to win. A game where you must wear “the face” and buy the golf clubs, though you know you only play to have a place to go to cut the deals without being scrutinized as you would if you were in a crowded restaurant. You like “the links” because you know golf is a white man’s game, a place where you can be in wide open spaces and say what you will because the wind shares no secrets.
God bless America.
“Four Out of Five: On Further Reflection”
It is two-twenty in the morning.
Four days after the election.
They are still counting votes, and some are saying it may take up to two weeks before there
will be a certified winner.
As I looked at the data and demographics on voting patterns, I decided I needed to modify what
I had previously written in the essay, “Three Out of Five: A Reflection.”
There have been more people going to the polls in America than there have ever been in our country’s history. The scary thing for me, which gave rise to the modification of my previous essay, is that about half of the one hundred and forty million people who voted, voted for Trump. That being said, I am thinking that maybe only one out of five white people you know is “worthy.” You can only invite one to the cookout, all the rest are suspect. As a BIPOC or ADOS, you cannot afford to make mistakes in your personal and social relationships. We continue to be enslaved in this country after four hundred years. We have been the mirrors held up high to show the citizens of this country how to live in a democracy, how to respect the laws and how to be inclusive in our policies. We have been the spirit of our nation, fighting and dying for this democracy by being full and complete citizens, fighting for rights and dignity for all people, going to war, and making great sacrifices in the name of America.
It is sad to have to resort to this kind of seemingly limited categorization of people, knowing that human beings and human behavior cannot be boxed into little statistical cells that will be both valid and reliable indicators in this people analysis. Of course, this happens all the time when we look at how policies are formed and monies distributed for programs in education, health care, retirement, housing and virtually all other areas of life and living in our democracy. On a more personal note, I am suggesting that most white people, the majority of them in this country, cannot be trusted. We must protect ourselves, our family members and all of our loved ones. We cannot afford to make mistakes that we may have to pay dearly for with hurt feelings, traumatic residue, and self-loathing. It is far better to be safe and cautious now, rather than having to say later that “I should have known better.”
Ahm jes sayin.
