Venting
Mitch McConnell is now minority leader. The dye was cast and a monster was defeated, no Dungeons & Dragons needed(excuse the accidental Ali rhyming). And we tonight we celebrate, rightfully so. For so many past sins, present, and future sins Mitch has been responsible for and will be. The courts are still very much so packed, the minority rule Mitch has wanted was enacted already. Eventual heartbreak will come from the Supreme Court sadly. Mitch still helped to prop up immense pain and irreparable human rights violating levels of pain to many immigrant families.
The dye was cast, the monster was slain. And so it goes, streamers fall and Warnock defeats Mitch and company, a Black pastor from a Black church is boosted up by Stacey Abrams and black organizers. The first Black Senator since reconstruction to win a Senate race(Tim Scott not included). That is rather wild, is it not. That in 2020, a record is broken in representation as it pertains to race in America.
As maddening as that is, it does not feel as disconnected from the reality we face. Our future president is Joe Biden, a former segregationist who objected to bussing. Even without the issue of bussing, a man who created the Prison industrial pipeline. Who opposes Medicare for All which is needed for a Black America that suffers awful health. I’m talking about the actual care, not the astronomical bills you can rack up, no Black Americans and specifically Black women suffer awful care and medical neglect. Biden’s idea of police reform is shots that leave Black men disabled instead of dead, a real showing of humanism.
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That is our future president. Yet, currently we cheer for Black organizers who carried the defeat of Trump and removal of Mitch McConnell from power. With a lack of awareness we fail to see the fruits of this effort will not be realized in a similar fashion to what has unfolded historically. A domicile will be erected wherein Black folks are given lip service & illusions of pragmatism for why radical change is not enacted. Incrementalism will play out, less than what is need for a 10 plus year genocide will be handed out. White liberals and white America will eat it up & Black America will be told a Black, female Vice President is the assurance it is enough. It never was, it never will be. Four years will pass, like the Black, Democratic mayors in Chicago and Atlanta and DC have forecasted — nothing will fundamentally change, a line from Biden himself.
Mines is a minimal frustration, not closely reflecting a Black America’s frustration that is now more than bordering on anxiety, stress, mental anguish, and tiredness. Mines however is an understanding my fellow human is being degraded, stripped of a humanity I do feel. Mines is not a sudden anger. It comes on the same day Jacob Blake’s victimhood is laughed at. Mines is an anger at having begun this journey of reading every case I’ve come across since Sean Bell, when I was only about 15 years old. Mines is a fetus in anger, mines is merely the desperation of volume. To amplify and not be heard, as mines is not the place to drown out Black voices. But I’m human, I grow tired and I want to vent.
The irony is I paint Black America as downtrodden. How ignorant am I to put a monolith on a dream. To put a roof on a garden and to paint misery in my own brushstrokes. I paint pain as Black when pain is universal and prolific in its cause. That Black joy is just human joy, that Black pain is just human pain. I never was a painter, I can’t draw neither. I can only write what I know to be true. That I cannot live in moments or between them. That I’ve done not enough to backup my grievances and frustrations. That I wax poetic and lie to myself that poetry redeems me. I carry with me the pain of my fellow humans. I’ve carried stories from across this vast human. I could paint for you but I can’t paint. I can write for you, but my writing is not the one you need nor that I need or want. I’m simply venting, I’m frustrated, I want more humanity & I struggle to know why it can’t be given — a basic human right.
Black Lives Matter is an outdated slogan — it doesn’t seem like enough to chant a declaration of basic human rights for so many years. To know it clearly means nothing to those taking Black Lives. That we don’t realize that we need radical, systemic change. Not marketing a chant, praising organizing that doesn’t help those doing the work.
I am frustrated, this unlike my past Medium articles is a vent. I added facts but honestly they don’t matter. It seemed like it was article but it wasn’t. I just am tired, I’m hurt, and I feel like crap as I try to sleep. No whirlwind ending that seems cool to end with. Just a random guy who proudly means nothing in the larger scheme and the world who’s wondering if there’s anything better but doubting it. Sorry. I offered nothing and I’m a tool for that. Just English errors and an eye roll. Maybe next article..
