On January 6, 2021, the day that the 2020 election results were to be certified, the nation and the world watched in horror as the nation’s capital was stormed and supporters of outgoing president Donald J. Trump decided to mount a full-blown insurrection at Trump’s gentle behest. A coup d’état.
Americans were glued to our televisions and devices as the images coming out of the capital were positively surreal and unimaginable. Crazed Trump supporters, unwilling to accept that their candidate had lost, were running amok and declaring that the election had been stolen. They were hell-bent on preventing the peaceful transfer of power, a hallmark of this country since its founding.
The result of that day of terror was five dead, 174 police officers injured, Trump impeached again, and many of the insurrectionists having dates with the court system.
The consensus at that time was that surely Trump was done. He would never have a career in politics again. He deserved to languish in a jail cell for a very long time. I mean, the man was willing to let his own vice president be lynched by the insurrectionists. Even members of his own party thought he was washed, as the kids say.
Surely the country could breathe a collective sigh of relief knowing that as awful as that day was—a dark day in the modern history of our country—we would never have to deal with Trump again. Right?
Well, as it turns out, Trump is a bit like the monster in the horror movies, you take one good shot, they fall, you turn your back and as soon as your heart rate returns to normal, something tells you to turn around. Only to see the monster madder than before and charging straight at you. But you have put down your weapon, you aren’t prepared, and the monster gets you. It either decapitates you and that’s the end of you, or you survive but you are badly wounded, and the movie ends with you alive but not quite the same.
Fast forward to January 6, 2025, and the 2024 elections results have been certified. In less than two weeks, Trump will return triumphantly to the Oval Office. This time with an assortment of monsters riding shotgun that features some of the scariest monsters and ghouls we could have ever imagined—including the richest man in the world who, while long on money, is short on compassion, empathy, care or common sense.
This moment is a reminder of how whiteness fails upward and how whiteness expects protection from laws and institutions and never really goes the full mile. Protection from the same laws that once said that people like me were 3/5 of a human being.
There are a lot of reasons for this moment, but the uncomfortable truth is that far too many white people who once called themselves allies and accomplices got tired. In the post-Trump years, people thought that wishful thinking would move the needle instead of the hard work of being in relationship with other white people, particularly white people whose views differed from their own. The failure to listen and to stay in the work meant that all those disaffected white people who felt their words weren’t being heard found homes inside of MAGA. Many others who didn’t like the status quo or the brokenness in the system but who also refused to side with the establishment opposition to the GOP and MAGA decided to stay at home and help lead us into full-blown whatever, never really thinking Trump would win—or that the lesser of two evils wasn’t good enough so just let it all burn.
We spent years building up DEI efforts in organizations and institutions and creating institutional fantasies that were flimsy and without foundation while patting ourselves on the back. Or we sat around in racial justice circle jerks, reading and learning without ever being nudged to building relationships and doing.
Then in the last weeks and months of the election, people started looking for the Black mammies to save them and for a time, we really thought Kamala Harris might do it—forgetting that this country wouldn’t even let a white woman become president. Were we really going to let a Black Asian woman go where a white woman couldn’t even go?
Remember, racism is a foundational hallmark of this country and it was having our first Black president, dear old beloved Barack, that put us on this collision course with our truest and most racist selves.
Of course, this January 6, everything went smoothly, especially with the rebranding of January 6, 2021, and even Trump referring to that day as a Day of Love. I would be remiss to not mention that the mainstream media was also complicit in getting us to this moment. Even after the insurrection, Trump was treated by the mainstream media as a ratings jackpot and too often produced pieces that failed to connect the dots on what and who he really is.
The GOP literally capitulated to this guy. The courts as well and, well, here we are. No one is coming to save us, and it sounds like transpeople and immigrants are some of the initial targets with this incoming administration. But make no mistake, we are going so far backwards rapidly that it scares me.
Just today, I came across a post by Elon Musk where he uttered the R slur. Retard. A word that has long since gone out of style is making a vicious comeback.
If the world’s richest man and self-appointed best buddy feels comfortable uttering such slurs, how long before he drops the N word and his sycophants start using it too. How long before Black people such as myself have targets on our backs?
While I am a “the glass-is-half-full” kind of gal, I must admit that in this moment, I am concerned; deeply concerned. I run a 57-year-old anti-racism organization that does good work but for the last three years has run a deficient and the rainy-day piggy bank is almost depleted. Our year-end fundraising has been abysmal and if we don’t raise $150,000 by the first of February, we may very well shut down—at a time when the work we need is greatly needed. No doubt some people are making hard economic decisions, but some are just tired. If anyone here is an undercover millionaire, this is your chance to make a difference in keeping vital regional organizing alive.
Even my work aside from my day job has been in flux as monthly patrons come and go. Other anti-racism writers and organizers report the same thing. At the same time, white writers and influencers are flourishing in this new self-supported economy.
My local contacts tell me of how hard it is to even get five people to show up at local organizing meetings. Meetings often held on Zoom. Meetings that require nothing more than time.
Posting and sharing online is great but whatever is headed our way requires folks to show up. It requires action and it requires resources. The one thing that we didn’t learn from the first Trump dance is organizing in response to specific actions by the administration is limited. What good is turning out thousands for the protests when you can’t turn out thousands for the long-term strategic planning? When you can’t even get volunteers to shore up the work of long standing organizers and activists in organizations?
This is a moment of reckoning and searching ourselves. Many words have been written since the election on the need to resist, but are we seriously considering what that requires?
It will require more than cancelling your Amazon Prime subscription or Twitter/X accounts while still posting on Mark Zuckerberg’s platforms. Are you willing to keep people safe? Are you willing to get involved in local politics and organizing? Can you make commitments even when you are tired? If you are white, can you push yourself a little harder? Black and brown people are tired and yet many of us will still show up because what is the alternative? Most of us can’t become ex-pats like those in the Blaxit movement, so we will be here despite being depleted.
I refuse to accept that we are doomed but I do know that surviving another Trump term is a group project. Sadly, group projects have a bad reputation because as we all know, rarely does everyone in the group pull their weight equally. I hope we change that. That we can rise above the gloom-and-doom predictions that are highly popular with some of my fellow indie writers. Love and hope still matter but we have to have heart and commitment. Resisting and surviving Trump is a multi-prong approach and you need to get ready.
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