Post-election thoughts: what haven’t you learned, acknowledged or reckoned with?

In 2016, I told myself I NEVER wanted to feel that way again - shocked, betrayed, and most of all ANGRY at the ways at which I had learned to deny my race, even to myself, in order to buy a kind of safety that was NEVER on the table, because safety that requires you to deny parts of who you are, safety that is offered up at the expense of others, a safety that props up a system of advantage and privilege based on genocide, enslavement and colonization is not actually any kind of safety at all.

Today, I am saddened and dismayed, but my work over the past 8 years means I am not surprised. Because what I’ve learned is - this is who America is.

This election is data that supports that.

For those of you who are shocked and confused, maybe even as or more than you were in 2016, what is is that you didn’t learn, acknowledge or reckon with over the past 8 years? And what are you going to do about it now?

People ask why we spend time in our workshops on history. It’s because without history, it is hard to understand how we got here. It is hard to understand where “here” is. And that makes it impossible to craft a path forward.

This is who America is, but I don’t believe it is who America has to be. America isn’t inherently racist… but it has been designed to be, and has chosen to stay that way.

Denial, too, is a choice.

The good intentions of individuals don’t dismantle systems of oppression centuries in the making.

And those systems of oppression don’t benefit anyone.

“If you have come here to help me you are wasting your time, but if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.” - Lilla Watson

The work continues - the outcome of this election was never going to change that.

In case you missed it, read LaVoya's blog post on:

Trading success for survival: the hidden cost for Black women in leadership

The question V poses at the end at the end is as relevant today as it ever was:

What kind of world do we want to build for Black women in leadership? How do we create space for their brilliance without the relentless cost? If we want their best, we have to give them our best.

Banner photo by Courtnie Tosana on Unsplash

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