What I've (re)learned last week.
Day 6 in the belly of the beast
(Zehni ghulāmi se āzād ho jayeh translates to “Emancipate yourself from mental slavery)
There are a number of posts, reels, thoughts, accusations (including some of these from me) that we have posted in the past week. As release, as re-education, as reminders, as rage. A friend told me a while back, “Nobody reads blogs anymore,” but I prefer to use my voice via writing over speaking. It has always been this way for me — sometimes with terrible results.
I will not speak for many of us, because I can’t. But I will tell you, even if I’m repeating myself, what I’ve relearned this past week. It probably won’t be everything, but without further ado:
Third parties need to be allowed into the electoral process: If they can be on our ballots, they should be given electoral votes, and we should be able to register as such. If not, then fuck the electoral college! Many countries in the world have more than two major parties to give their votes to. We need an overhaul of our electoral system, and we have been saying this for years. Two parties both controlled by corporate interests is ridiculous in what is supposedly a democracy. Why do Bernie Sanders and Rashida Tlaib have to caucus as Democrats when that is not what they are? Why do social democrats have to be subsumed in the Democratic party when this doesn’t happen in other countries? A large part of America, in its electoral processes, among others, is holding on to power, in fear. We are more than red and blue.
We can elect a woman as President in America: “They didn’t vote for her because they are not ready for a woman president in America.” People of the world, this election had less to do with Kamala’s gender than it did her policies. I’m not saying gender wasn’t a factor, but it certainly was not the main thing.
Understand that we are not just voting for a person. We are also voting for a party. A party that in the case of the Democratic one may have many progressives, but not enough to effect real change.
And many of us do want real change. Not promises to repair something, instead of temporary measures to keep a roof from caving in. Real change involves a deeper examination of our system(s) and what needs to be overhauled. We know we cannot depend on the Republicans to work in the people’s best interest, but how much longer can we depend on the Democrats? Because Republicans controlling the executive, the legislative bodies, and the Supreme Court come January, is not due to them alone. There are more than a few Democrats who voted for the President-elect. Their votes were punitive, which is bloody unfortunate, but I doubt that Kamala Harris, or many of us got the message.
We still don’t understand what “justice” means:
We need to stop quoting the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. if we don’t understand what justice means. The majority of us seem to still view it as retributive rather than restorative. Social justice? What the hell is that? The late Peter Tosh sings “I don’t want no peace. I want equal rights and justice.”
I agree with most of what Peter Tosh sings here, and I want to know why do we shout out “No justice, no peace,” at anti-war protests, and think that does not apply to Palestine? Tosh is right: There is no peace without “equal rights and justice.” Not here in America, nowhere in the world. But here we are, in America, where some people think that equal rights are special rights, while the right to bear arms has nothing to do with mass shootings and murder.
A little over a year since Hamas’ attack on Israelis in which they killed 1200, and took 250 hostage, of which now 100 remain in captivity, while many are dead, Israelis have all but destroyed Gaza, and have committed genocide on thousands and thousands of Palestinians, including children. Gaza has been under occupation, blockaded, for decades. Its citizens have not been able to move freely to go to work, among other activities. More than a few people have said that Palestinians put themselves in this predicament. This is not coming out of the mouths of Republicans alone, mind you. And yes, this was a factor in the election. It was why I did not want to vote for Kamala Harris. At no point did I believe that anything was going to change if she was elected. Not after what she did and said at the Democratic convention. And I still voted for her because I wanted to hope. I wanted to hope that for once, a Black-South Asian-American could have a greater impact not only on domestic policy, but foreign policy as well.
And I’m here to tell you that just as skinfolk are not always kinfolk, neither are genderfolk, much as we would like them to be. Voters demonstrated that as well, no matter how many ads regarding the end of abortion rights were drummed into us.
We were willing to ignore Gaza, or compelled to in order to avoid the greater evil. But many could not do that. The Arab-American constituency is not a small one by any means. And while there were those who were willing to believe that Kamala offered us hope, many did not. Rashida Tlaib won in her district, a heavily populated Arab-American district, even as she continued to oppose Biden-Harris policies. Kamala did not do so well there. They felt their issues were not addressed. They had to know that the President-elect would lie to get their votes, but they gave them to him anyway. How angry were they, that they would rather vote for a criminal, a liar, a woman-abuser rather than the party they had been in.
I am not scapegoating them. I think it’s unfortunate they voted for him. But if this doesn’t tell you in part that we have a much deeper problem . . . . and it has to do with justice. “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” Dr. King said. We really should stop quoting this verbatim, without understanding what this means.
I mentioned to someone how disappointed I was at Kamala’s tone, and her words and actions at the convention. This person responded, “Yes, as was I, but I’m not a single-issue voter.” My response was, “Well, neither am I,” and silently I thought, that has fuck all to do with what is happening in Gaza. We collectively should have brought this to bear on her, and some of us did. And we used our votes as our voice as was our right to do.
There is more to learn, and re-learn, but I express myself much slower than I used to in both speaking and writing. And I am trying very hard not to sound like I’m assigning blame to one single group of people. We talk about the ones who now feel empowered to be as abusive as they want, in their ignorance, in how they choose, whatever level of intelligence they have. We need to look at ourselves as well, at some of our superficiality, at our willingness to ignore deeper structural problems for a temporary gauze bandage, while those problems continue, at our undying loyalty to blue while ignoring the diversity we keep talking about. I do not have the answers as to how to make change happen, because those answers are not and never have been up to one person. As far as politics goes, I’ve always wanted to follow my conscience and what my faith has offered in terms of kindness, embracing the “other,” welcoming the stranger, and I know I fail. I failed this time, as well. I want to do better this time around, because in the forty-five years I’ve been here, I have never seen such blatantly fascist displays of “power.” Unless we count Dubya. And Dubya was a disaster. He lied to get us into a war we didn’t need to begin, and still, somehow, that feels less nightmarish than what lies ahead.
When the President-elect says, “We are going to help our country heal,” Project 2025 does not even begin the process of healing. Division is not healing. Mass deportation is not healing. Bastards saying, “Your body, my choice” is fucking not healing.
The right always manages to unite themselves somehow when it comes to getting what they want. We’ve got to end this, but we’ve got to find a way to unite first.