Loud Screams and Listening: Election 2020
It is the Monday after the Presidential election results were reported and Trump still refuses to concede. Last week marked a new level of unease that tested the mettle of any mindfulness app I downloaded back in May.
The library next to my three year old’s school was an election day polling place, so we talked about what an election is and how democracy works. It was one of those “Beware! You are parenting” moments that my kid will never remember, but that feels really important to me. We talked about how this country is run by people who are picked by people who vote and that the person who is currently in charge makes bad choices that hurt people.
“Like Hans?” my kid asked.
“Yes, just like Hans.”
In our house we want the person in charge to make good choices that help people. “I make good choices that help people” the kid replied. This 3-year-old asked if you could practice voting. I said sure, we can practice. Then after a thoughtful pause: “Mommy, I want to help get rid of the guy making bad choices. And I can scream very loud. Can I help?”
“Thank you, baby. Yes, we may need your loud scream. I’ll let you know when it is time to use it.”
This exchange had me reflecting on my tangled feelings over election-weekend. How the dire need to remove one man from the White House does not directly correlate with support of his opponent. And the how the achievement of making the electoral college work for the popular vote is owed to the monumental everyday efforts of BIPOC organizers, as the outpouring of gratitude for Stacy Abrams attests. My excitement at the firsts ushered in by Kamala Harris and the Second Gentleman of the United States move to the White House is tempered. Recognition of race is a key first step for an ongoing nation-wide anti-racist project. I will never forget MSNBC’s Chris Mathews positioning of Barack Obama in 2009 as “post-racial, by all appearances.” And all the subsequent damage that sentiment wrought. But the politics of representation are particularly slippery on the national level and the wide spread awakening to race and systemic racism so many white folks embarked on recently is still just beginning. Occupying the White House is not enough to dismantle whiteness.
Still through my delayed-joy, tempered attachment, and wariness I am pushing myself to stay open, keep listening, and move out of the way for folks who are experiencing joy.
I saw Harris look directly in the camera and say “But while I may be the first woman in this office, I won’t be the last.” I also felt the power of Biden publicly joining the war on racial injustice in his acceptance: “The battle to achieve racial justice and root out systemic racism in this country.”
We have done it. We have voted Trump out of office.
We have also done the painful combination of work and mourning to have previously taboo words — systemic racism — in the acceptance speeches of both the President and Vice-President Elect.
So, I am poised. Ready to listen. Also, ready to scream.
Any parent who has interpreted Hans’s teachery to a toddler knows that (much thanks to Frozen) kids have been cautioned at from a young age about the difference between the appearances and actions. On this first workday on-the-other-side of the election, I am remaining respectful of rest, of the experience of joy, and of the continued commitment to making good choices that help people.
