Original (Archive)
Recently, I’ve heard some white folks, who are ostensibly Democrats, say they are thinking about not voting for Joe Biden in the upcoming election. This is addressed to them. Seems like they have dis-remembered what happened in the not-so-long-ago past which got us an orange fascist in the White House in the first place, and they are fixin’ to repeat insanity and expect different results.
As one of the over 40 million Black Americans who would suffer, perhaps die, under another Trump-Klan regime, I know who I’m voting for: Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and my state and local Democrats. I have neither the luxury nor privilege to vote third party or to not vote. To do so would be to spit on the graves of my ancestors.
Perhaps you have the luxury and privilege to not think of us Black and Brown folks. Perhaps you’ve forgotten the 400,000 COVID deaths, under Trump, (and millions of sufferers with long COVID), who are of folks of all colors. I haven’t. I’m still mourning family and friends.
Perhaps you don’t mourn for the over 4,000 Puerto Ricans who died in and after Hurricane Maria, thanks to Trump.
Perhaps you and yours haven’t lost anyone due to mass shootings, and you think your children are safe in their schools where they do mass shooting drills. You’ll continue to allow the NRA to get away with supplying open slaughter.
Those of you who purport to care about the environment are willing to allow a climate change-denying cabal of polluters to gain the upper hand here while you make the rest of us puke as a result of your hypocritical purity.
I realize that the state of global politics—particularly the situation with Palestine and Israel is currently (and has been for decades) a source of major concern, anger, and outrage, and that there are many people here who have harsh, and often valid critiques surrounding our country’s current (and past) Middle East foreign policy.
Right now there are also massacres taking place in Sudan, and in other parts of the globe, that aren’t “headline” news. The death toll rises in our neighboring state of Haiti, which we have played a part in—these are conflicts you have virtually ignored.
When I hear people talking, who claim to be “progressives” or “left-radicals” or “right-on revolutionaries” who say they ain’t gonna vote for Joe, essentially, they are telling me and mine—fuck you.
Let me tell you somethin’ straight up: The bullshit argument that bringing down more oppression on folks here, with an open fascist government in charge will cause “the masses” to rise up and make a revolution is a crock of that shit. Installing Trump and the Klan won’t help Palestinians or Israelis achieve a two-state solution over there. (If by some stroke of luck Dump ain’t the R-thug nominee—his stand-in will be equally horrific.) It sure ain’t gonna get the boot off the backs of Black people, immigrants, the LGBTQ+ community, women (Roe), the disabled, and the elderly here at home. It won’t fix homegrown antisemitism or Islamophobia—which we see evidence of daily.
Those of us older Black folks who live here in Babylon, or as we used to say in the Black Panther Party, “In the belly of the beast,” who have been fighting the internal contradictions here for many, many decades, as did our ancestors, know that long-term struggle is just that. It’s long, hard, frustrating, back-sliding, and moving forward inch-by-hard-won-inch—often with not enough white support (see how white people here voted in the last election).
Most of us older Black folks know, as did our grandparents and great-grandparents, that we won’t live to see oppression and hate lifted and banished from the nation we helped build on our backs and over the bones of Native American genocide. But we are still voting—and will continue to do so, because we care about a potential future. Y’all who are talking about not voting are just setting us back—again.
You naive folks who want instant, microwave solutions to deeply entrenched flaws in both homegrown and global politics are living in a world of fantasy, eschewing history, and political complexities. Nuance ain’t in your lexicon.
It is in mine. So is GOTV—for Democrats.
So be it. The choice is yours. In case you have missed exactly what I’m saying here today, let me say this again—bluntly and in bold—fuck you.
(FYI—this was not addressed to the Black or Brown quislings who are out there. We see you and will deal with you too.)
End of rant.
Recently, I’ve heard some white folks, who are ostensibly Democrats, say they are thinking about not voting for Joe Biden in the upcoming election. This is addressed to them. Seems like they have dis-remembered what happened in the not-so-long-ago past which got us an orange fascist in the White House in the first place, and they are fixin’ to repeat insanity and expect different results.
As one of the over 40 million Black Americans who would suffer, perhaps die, under another Trump-Klan regime, I know who I’m voting for: Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and my state and local Democrats. I have neither the luxury nor privilege to vote third party or to not vote. To do so would be to spit on the graves of my ancestors.
Perhaps you have the luxury and privilege to not think of us Black and Brown folks. Perhaps you’ve forgotten the 400,000 COVID deaths, under Trump, (and millions of sufferers with long COVID), who are of folks of all colors. I haven’t. I’m still mourning family and friends.
Perhaps you don’t mourn for the over 4,000 Puerto Ricans who died in and after Hurricane Maria, thanks to Trump.
Perhaps you and yours haven’t lost anyone due to mass shootings, and you think your children are safe in their schools where they do mass shooting drills. You’ll continue to allow the NRA to get away with supplying open slaughter.
Those of you who purport to care about the environment are willing to allow a climate change-denying cabal of polluters to gain the upper hand here while you make the rest of us puke as a result of your hypocritical purity.
I realize that the state of global politics—particularly the situation with Palestine and Israel is currently (and has been for decades) a source of major concern, anger, and outrage, and that there are many people here who have harsh, and often valid critiques surrounding our country’s current (and past) Middle East foreign policy.
Right now there are also massacres taking place in Sudan, and in other parts of the globe, that aren’t “headline” news. The death toll rises in our neighboring state of Haiti, which we have played a part in—these are conflicts you have virtually ignored.
When I hear people talking, who claim to be “progressives” or “left-radicals” or “right-on revolutionaries” who say they ain’t gonna vote for Joe, essentially, they are telling me and mine—fuck you.
Let me tell you somethin’ straight up: The bullshit argument that bringing down more oppression on folks here, with an open fascist government in charge will cause “the masses” to rise up and make a revolution is a crock of that shit. Installing Trump and the Klan won’t help Palestinians or Israelis achieve a two-state solution over there. (If by some stroke of luck Dump ain’t the R-thug nominee—his stand-in will be equally horrific.) It sure ain’t gonna get the boot off the backs of Black people, immigrants, the LGBTQ+ community, women (Roe), the disabled, and the elderly here at home. It won’t fix homegrown antisemitism or Islamophobia—which we see evidence of daily.
Those of us older Black folks who live here in Babylon, or as we used to say in the Black Panther Party, “In the belly of the beast,” who have been fighting the internal contradictions here for many, many decades, as did our ancestors, know that long-term struggle is just that. It’s long, hard, frustrating, back-sliding, and moving forward inch-by-hard-won-inch—often with not enough white support (see how white people here voted in the last election).
Most of us older Black folks know, as did our grandparents and great-grandparents, that we won’t live to see oppression and hate lifted and banished from the nation we helped build on our backs and over the bones of Native American genocide. But we are still voting—and will continue to do so, because we care about a potential future. Y’all who are talking about not voting are just setting us back—again.
You naive folks who want instant, microwave solutions to deeply entrenched flaws in both homegrown and global politics are living in a world of fantasy, eschewing history, and political complexities. Nuance ain’t in your lexicon.
It is in mine. So is GOTV—for Democrats.
So be it. The choice is yours. In case you have missed exactly what I’m saying here today, let me say this again—bluntly and in bold—fuck you.
(FYI—this was not addressed to the Black or Brown quislings who are out there. We see you and will deal with you too.)
End of rant.
