This is a death rattle for White supremacy
I am furious. I am disgusted. How is anyone surprised? There is a straight line from President Donald Trump’s “birther” conspiracy to his escalator speech to the violent clashes in Charlottesville, Virginia, to the insurrection at our Capitol. Donald Trump told us exactly who he was and exactly what he wanted our nation to uphold every single step of the way.
For four years, we have lived under an administration that has continuously and unabashedly uplifted racism, misogyny, transphobia, homophobia and xenophobia. For four years, we felt the loss, pain and fear of violent hate crimes against communities of color rising year over year. We watched the sedition of our nation’s leader, foreign influence and media echo chambers stoke these fires. No one should have been caught off guard.
As if the COVID-19 pandemic did not already underscore this nation’s racial disparities enough, the world watched our country’s reckoning on race met with further excessive police brutality and violence used on Black and Brown Americans only to then see a White supremacist coup met with law enforcement officers opening doors and taking selfies. Trump asked for this and all too many were willing to turn a blind eye, uplift him or follow along.
The nauseating truth we have to face is that the racist roots of his rhetoric and the reality he fostered are woven deeply into the origins, historic actions and contemporary climate of our country. Yes, the Trump administration was a festering disaster, but he and his success are merely symptoms of our adherence to White supremacy. Over 74 million Americans voted for this man. The people, ideals and systems that uplift the values that brought us to this moment will not simply disappear once Trump is out of office.
On Jan. 6, and for the last four years, we have seen the limits of our democracy tested. We have exposed our weaknesses on the global stage, threatening national security. We turned family members into strangers and neighbors into suspects. We deserve more than 11th-hour resignations of elected officials and their wilting acquiescence after years of complicity and recalcitrant willful ignorance. Flaccid calls for unity feel tepid when what we need is honest accountability for the crimes of this administration and our county’s past.
My hope is that the collective trauma we’ve just endured is the death rattle of White supremacy. That the recent historic victories of LGBTQ and BIPOC elected officials are more than a signal of sea change. That what we are witnessing now in those victories is the generations-long culmination of collective action by marginalized people who worked to build a progressive coalition intent on serving all Americans. That as we are gentle in our healing, we are firm in our resolve to reach our nation’s unmet promise of liberty and justice for all. If we are to move forward as a nation, these will need to be more than hopes. We will need to muster our resilience and continue working towards these ends with compassionate intentionality.
Fernando Lopez is executive director of San Diego Pride and lives in University Heights.