Forgotten No Longer (AKA Good Morning, America.)

Author’s note: This entire election cycle, I was particularly bugged by the fact that our most sophisticated projections about our most important decision as a country … is fundamentally based on the most primitive of generalizations (or trend analyses) … race. It seemed to me that we would continue to have divisive elections in this country as long as we continued to report on these elections from a place of self-interest and self-identification, rather than a sense of collectivism. When we are either on the white team, the black team, the brown team, or the red team … it ultimately comes down to what’s good for me and mine as opposed to what’s good for us and ours. If Democracy is a team sport that sacrifices for the good of the group, then voting is an individual exercise…hopelessly rooted in self preservation…sometimes at the expense of others on your so called “team.” - hb



“The silent majority is back, and we’re going to take the country back” - Donald J. Trump



No one forgot.

White men have always decided the presidency
and we’ve survived.

In fact,
they made up 100%
of the founding fathers,

60% of them being
non-college educated,

and electing General Washington,
one of nine Presidents who never went to college.

Yesterday,
63% of white men voted for Trump

Yesterday,
“Non-college educated whites” became a racial slur.

Eight years ago,
41% of white men voted for President Obama,
and we survived that
too.

If anything,
we forgot
that at any given time
the President is no more
or less
than what our country sees in the mirror

when we wake up in the morning.
Especially this morning,
not fully woke.

Not always liking what we see
Not always resembling who we wish to be,
but who we are.

That reflection
a constant reminder
of the forgotten men and women

fed up with all this commotion
about water, refugees and lives
that aren’t theirs.

Jobs
that aren’t theirs.

An America
that is not theirs,
because it is not ours.

When our country
showed us who it was,
the first time,
we believed it.

This last stand
is nothing new,
in the face of a shrinking electorate
and a shifting complexion

We will never forget
who’s in charge.

© Hakim Bellamy, November 9th, 2016