What Do You Mean By That?

98: Inauguration 2021


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We finally made it to the inauguration of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. This day is about a break with Trumpism, a break from the direction that our country has steadily been heading for the past nearly five years, and the fact that the majority (it’s a small one, but still a majority) of our country rejected that ideal in November.  

What this day is NOT though, is the end of Trumpism.  It is not the end of hard work. We have seen violence that we could never imagine in the halls of our nation’s Capitol building, and a staggering display of White power and White privilege that wasn’t shocking or surprising, but disgusting and a reminder that this is, no matter how we twist things around, who we are.  

This is who we are, for the fact that Misasha’s sons will still be called the N-word for simply being Black, for the fact that we still have no justice for George Floyd or Breonna Taylor and that what happened to Jacob Blake was not justice. For the fact that Tamir Rice was killed at 12 for carrying a cap gun and that in early January a whole White mob brought zip ties and guns and 2500 rounds of ammo (and that’s just one guy) into the Capitol building and actually beat a police officer with the American flag and THEY WALKED OUT OF THERE. This is who we are, in whispered conversations, in slanderous campaigns, in voter suppression, in dirty looks and false facts based on systemic racism that we choose to look away from because we think white supremacy helps us. It doesn’t. It hurts us all. 

So on this historic day, we want you to take it in. Breathe it in. But then - don’t look away. Don’t think that you wrote some voter postcards and you’re good until 2024. Because today is not the end of the past four years. Today is the beginning of the next four years. And we think it’ll be an uphill battle - and we need you with us. Let’s go to work.  

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What Do You Mean By That?By Sara and Misasha

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