Many African Descendants/African Americans are still experiencing trauma from both the myriad of murders of innocent Black men and women by police as well as from a legal system that does not hold their murderers accountable. We have seen -- even with an Obama presidency -- how state policy has been used in attempts to raise police to a protected citizen class, codifying their actions and the status of innocent Black people as targets. We have seen a national narrative that blames Black people for their own deaths at the hands of police. We have seen the demonization of any movement fighting for the rights of people who are not white. And we have seen all of the above supported by people -- primarily white -- who think of themselves as good, decent people without racial animus. They think of themselves in that way because in our society we are taught to think of those acting out of racial animus as belonging to organized hate-groups such as the Klan instead of organized faith-groups such as Evangelical Christians. As such it is easy for them to deny the devastating impact of their vote on those of us who are not white. But those of us who are not white deny, ignore, or minimize at the peril of our families that 51% of the U.S. population just declared to us that they are okay with whatever policy devastation is wrought on our communities. They just declared to us that they are willing to sacrifice us on the altar of maintaining their economic and social racial privilege.
Many of our "white allies" are crying about how devastated they are by the vote or how the vote might have been different with Bernie (who also seemed incapable of incorporating an authentic racial equity lens analysis as he campaigned). However, they don't have to live in our shoes or in our vulnerable positions. I don't want white tears, or white disappointment, or white anger. What I want is white action, and that starts with their reflection on both their depth of understanding (or lack thereof) of the overarching and insidious nature of white supremacy; how they are (actively or passively) complicit; and finally, how they can follow the lead of activists of color in developing strategies to use their privilege and to take actual risks -- participating in one-off protests notwithstanding -- to change it.
Black people and Brown people -- cis-gender, SGL (Same Gender Loving), and Trans --are doing our parts. We always do.
51% of "good" white people voted for a man formally endorsed by the KKK. That vote supported that man in doing exactly what he is doing now: opening the door and setting the table to "Make AmeriKKKa Great Again" -- an AmeriKKKa where, as Chief Justice Roger B. Taney said in 1857:
