By the time this column is read, there will be evidence of a winner of this presidential election, even if, as expected, it is denied by enthralled deniers and their resultant machinations and maneuvers of various malicious and vicious kinds.
I write confidently that Black people voted overwhelmingly against emergent and promised fascism and for conditions most favorable to our people, the continuation of our struggle and the shared good of the world and all in it.
And even if Whites of all kinds, faiths, classes, genders and sexualities, means and mindsets, outvoted us and fellow progressives, deciding Trump and Whites “über alles” (over all others) regardless, and futilely trying to hold back history, we must not be dispirited or diverted. Indeed, we must continue the struggle, keep the faith and hold the line.
But let’s assume optimistically that Kamala Harris has won the election and become President Kamala Harris, that enough Whites have joined us and others in the fight against fascism and all the accompanying negatives promised. Still, we must continue the struggle, keep the faith and hold the line. Indeed, we must intensify and expand the struggle in any case, for it is either way a matter of life and death, of urgent justice and stopping ongoing genocide, healthcare and housing, quality education, economic security, ending systemic violence and wars, halting environmental degradation, and solving other related critical issues.
Moreover, if we see Kamala’s tenure as a path to a better future, we cannot exempt her from our fundamental moral obligation to challenge her to not simply keep what her Party promises, but to expand the agenda to include a real path and movement to a new shared and inclusive future for all.
Even if we are inclined to declare undying love for her, like all our loved ones, we must “cherish and challenge” her and them, challenge them to do their best, become their best, and be their best as an ongoing practice and promise of an ever greater good for us and all. But we teach selfishness, forgetfulness and resistance to sharing when we build and defend relationships that are not reciprocal and hold all accountable.
Such a non-reciprocal relationship with Obama still haunts us, reflected in Obama’s recent coming out only to give pretentious prattle and preachments of racist stereotypes to Black men. This was a context where what was appropriate and urgent was encouragement, asking what are our concerns and how could the Party help us so we could help them in mutually beneficial ways.
Now, Kamala did not do this and instead rightfully sought to address Black men’s concerns. But you, I and “erybody” know, there is a whole lot more to do. Promises are at best a first step, but practice proves and makes possible everything.
We will still have to form a united front against racism, but we must also struggle against unjust and immoral compromises that prevent achieving the just and good society and world we want and deserve to live in and leave for our descendants. And when we insist on our rights and due, we must not think or be told our agenda is somehow less urgent and less vital to us and US society.
For our agenda has always been an agenda to expand the realm of freedom and justice in this country. It is the racist, restrictive, exclusive and oppressive agenda that we rightly and relentlessly oppose.
If Kamala and the progressive forces in the country win this election, we know also from the history of the Obama election, that the established order will claim the victory, even if they opposed Kamala and even refused to endorse her in their papers. And they will work to use her for their own ends, undermining the efforts and aspirations of those who strove hard to achieve this victory with her, especially, her and the Democratic Party’s most loyal voting constituency – Black people. If she and we are not constantly vigilant and always active and in struggle, they will use her in the most negative and counterproductive ways.
As I have written elsewhere, concerning the negative use of the Obama presidency, the established order will seek first to use Kamala as a moral mask to camouflage, condone and continue corporate plunder, pollution and predation, using her as a Black woman from a people known world-wide as a moral and social vanguard and whose historic freedom struggle serves as an enduring reference, resource and inspiration for other oppressed and struggling people around the world.
They will also seek to use her election as a shield against our and others’ rightful racial social justice claims, arguing an America miraculously redeemed by her election, no longer needing serious corrective measures. They will likewise seek to use her and her election as a counterweight to valid and needed criticism of the system itself.
For she will now become the president, promoter and protector of U.S. state interests and there will be cultivated and developed a sense among African Americans that to criticize the system is to criticize Kamala and serve racist interests instead of rightly resisting oppression everywhere and from every source.
Finally, the established order will seek, as with Obama, to use President Kamala Harris’ election and office to facilitate an uncritical and even mindless Americanization and what Haji Malcolm called a “self-blinding childlike patriotism” void of the self-questioning discourse and critical dialog any real democracy and free society demands and requires.
As I have said, “We are, each and all of us, always standing at the crossroads of history with our foremother Nana Harriet Tubman, embodying the struggles, hopes, aspirations, prayers and promise of our people. And like her, we must not run-away seeking security and satisfaction in illusions and individual escape.
“Instead, we must realize with her that freedom, dignity, self-determination and all the great goods of life are shared goods, and we must achieve, secure and enjoy them together “in and through righteous and relentless struggle.”
Dr. Maulana Karenga, Professor and Chair of Africana Studies, California State University-Long Beach; Executive Director, African American Cultural Center (Us); Creator of Kwanzaa; and author of Kwanzaa: A Celebration of Family, Community and Culture and Introduction to Black Studies, 4th Edition, www.OfficialKwanzaaWebsite.org; www.MaulanaKarenga.org.
