ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS...

The past few years, amid the Trump administration, have been exhausting. No matter how hard I try not to let the stain of other people’s hatred and bigotry affect me, somehow it always does. Hate erodes it, bringing nothing of value to the equation. Over a lifetime, it will suck the good and decency out of you. I have often wondered how the mother of Rittenhouse could love her child and yet drive him to a Black Lives Matter Protest with a gun in a car and drop him off? How could a parent teach a child to hate?

What I want this Christmas can’t be purchased and wrapped in pretty paper with a festive bow. It can only come from deep within me and an abiding faith that this too shall pass.

I knew that there would be a backlash from having a Black President, but this level of sustained anathema is alarming. This all in hatred of “others” (anyone other than heterosexual white Anglo-Saxon Protestant or white Nationalists) is willing to destroy the very country it purports to love. I used to believe that the youth would save us, that once all the old bigots had died off, then maybe America could begin to move toward a better future. However, this last decade has uncovered racial bias across the board, among the young and old.

Latinos for Trump and Somalis for Trump have found out that America’s Immigration story wasn’t written for them. Usha Vance and Vic Rumba Swami have discovered that they are included in the Black and Brown people categories. Jewish people’s honeymoon period with white Nationalists will end abruptly, probably when they least expect it.

Black Americans who are not immigrants but are descendants of the enslaved are roughly 11% of the United States population, who knew from America’s inception that it was based on a lie. Our ancestors knew that the dream was not meant for them, but they dreamed anyway. It was because of their dreams that this nation thrived and became what it was. And yet African Americans have had the entire United States Government, from the local level to the Federal level, systemically work to continue to enslave them. Sharecropping, poll taxes, literacy tests to vote, Jim Crow laws, Vagrancy Laws/Black Codes, Red-lining, Racially Restrictive Real Estate Covenants, etc…

Immigrants coming to America were told that if they worked hard enough, they could be successful here. I wonder what they were told about the Blacks in America who hadn’t made it. I doubt they were told how oppressed they were and how there was little to no investment in their schools and communities. Nor were they told that historically, every time a Black community appeared to be thriving, their communities were either burned down by a mob, destroyed by urban development, or, more recently, displaced by gentrification. I wondered if they were taught in their citizenship classes about the contributions of the enslaved and Black Americans? Somehow, I think they consciously or subconsciously internalize the American Dream to be the pursuit of riches, status, and something other than themselves.  At least that is what it feels like to me, because how else can you explain the last 10 years? Where people voted to put a felon in the White House instead of a qualified Woman of Color?  

What I want for Christmas this year is for people to stop hating each other. We don’t have to agree or like each other, but hate is too strong an emotion to carry and too ugly an emotion to inflict on someone else. For our own well-being and personal growth, maybe we can stop trying to be right all the time and be more understanding. As Tiny Tim expressed in his crippled, impoverished state (much like our country today), “God bless us, everyone!”

IN THE VALLEY OF DRY BONES

In the valley of dry bones are the bitter and defeated living dead. They are the ones who always have a scowl on their face and have nothing positive to say. They are also the ones who have given up on living a joyful life. How does one get to such a desolate place in their life? They get there in many ways. Loss is one of them, and betrayal is another.

In life, you will experience losses of many types, and one of them will be so profound that it will thrust you into the valley of dry bones. A place where living is reduced to mere survival. Where breathing hurts, and all you want to do is go back to the past before the event happened. After a while, you will find yourself living more and more in the past with the dead instead of being in the present with friends and family. You close yourself off, finding it difficult to get up and leave the house. Everything bright and exciting about a new day is gone, and all you can do is get through one more day.

Some of us have been hurt by the people that we love. That betrayal cuts the deepest. While others have endured a series of slights, back stabbings, and deceptions, causing them to become callous and respond in kind, they have developed a hardened demeanor. I saw this phenomenon as I was growing up and vowed that I wouldn’t become like that.

I have never wanted to be a bitter old lady, and I’m grateful that I’m not. But I have been living in the valley of dry bones for far too long. The death of my mother was a devastating loss for me; one that I have struggled to overcome. My mother died nine years ago, and I hadn’t realized how long I had been grieving. Although I will continue to mourn the loss of the woman who meant so much to me, I can now begin to live fully again and let the dead rest. I’ve asked God to give me back my joy, and I’m trying to do my part by living my life with gratitude. I’m grateful for the time I had with my mother, and I'm thankful for the time I have left with my family.

If you have found yourself in this desolate place, perhaps you can reflect on how you want to live going forward. You are not alone; many have found themselves in the same place. I’m a woman of faith, so my faith has helped. Joining various clubs and spending time with my grandkids has been instrumental in getting me out of the house. I’ve taken college courses for fun and written three books. My writing has been very cathartic and opened up new spaces for me to roam. Joy has begun to creep back into my life, even when grief makes an unexpected appearance.

I won’t look back on the valley of dry bones; instead, I will look forward to what each new day has to offer, and I hope that you will do the same.

A DEFINING MOMENT...NOW IS YOUR TIME

Being Black in America has never been easy, and unfortunately, I don’t see it getting easier for us as a people any time soon. I was a child during the Civil Rights Movement, so I, like many African Americans who missed that pivotal moment in Black history, wonder if I would have been a brave participant or just an observer. I hope I would have fought, but to be honest, I don’t know if I could have left the North to go to the South. Passive resistance in the face of such brutality is difficult to watch, let alone to embrace as a strategy and practice. Think about the willpower and the discipline that it took to endure the abuse that was heaped upon them.

The Black Lives Matter movement, founded in 2013, was in response to George Zimmerman's not guilty verdict in the murder of Trayvon Martin. Racial and economic justice, police and criminal justice system reform, and upholding the rights of marginalized people were some of the goals the organization wished to address. The Movement reached its peak in 2020 with global protests over the death of George Floyd. 15 to 26 million people protested throughout the United States, making it one of the country’s largest protest movements in history. And yet I sat that one out. I was in my fifties and fear kept me on the couch, rooting for the brave young people marching in the streets. The Black Lives Matter movement had me hopeful that maybe White America would finally look in the mirror and see the ugly truth of who they are as a nation. Maybe they would see that a country built on the cornerstone of a white supremacist ideology can not stand forever. Perhaps they would stop teaching their children to hate, and instead, they would begin to believe in the founding document of this country. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

It is shocking and appalling to see how Christianity has been distorted to justify wickedness from this country's inception to now. Guns, Religion, bigotry, and White Supremacy have been conflated into a White Nationalist political ideology that has transformed the Republican Party. This thing that the Republican Party has become would have you believe that it is rooted in family values and Christianity, when in reality, there is nothing Christ-like about it. I will not speak about their family values because not every family shares the same values (enough said).

It is almost nine months into Trump's second term. I’m exhausted by the daily bombardment of ICE raids, threats to militarize American cities, the Big Beautiful Bill, the bombing of a Venezuelan ship, the building of an Alligator Alcatraz in Florida, a new patio in the Rose Garden, and a ballroom at the White House. All of which is to distract the American people from the fleecing of the country and the Epstein files.

“Move along, nothing to see here.” This is what the White House would have us believe. If that statement were true about the Epstein files, it would be easy to prove by simply releasing them. So, I ask you to use your common sense and draw your own conclusions. If you are comfortable or okay with having someone who has either slept with little girls or knew little girls were being sexually abused and sex trafficked remain in the White House, then keep the status quo. If the possibility of having a pedophile or someone who protects pedophiles stay in the Oval Office is abhorrent to you, then you must act. Every Republican in office who refuses to vote to release the Epstein files must be voted out.

If you are like me and have wondered if you would have acted during a pivotal time in history, you no longer have to wonder. Now is the time; the fight will be as close as your polling place or your mail-in ballot. Now is the time!