"Us" Versus "Them"
We didn't draw battle lines; we just live with them.
Sixteen years ago, any veneer that covered American tribalism was irreparably shattered.
The 2008 presidential campaign of Barack Obama uncovered the ugly, festering racism that has existed since the founding of the republic.
Institutionalized slavery, post-Reconstruction Jim Crow laws, lynchings, and the violent response to the Civil Rights movement showcased to the entire world that America was better at talking about freedom and liberty than living it out.
And years later, forty years of progress was exposed as superficial and incomplete when a major political party fielded a Black man as its candidate.
Many said he was too inexperienced. They questioned his qualifications at every turn.
But the questioning wasn’t the worst part.
The worst part were the racist signs and slogans.
The comparisons to apes.
The ropes symbolizing lynchings.
All of the familiar racist tropes were on full display in 2008, throughout Obama’s first presidency, the 2012 presidential campaign, and his second presidency.
Many White people who did not share this racist animus were surprised by this blatant racism.
People of Color were not surprised.
Every day, we live in the shadow of racial prejudice and the American as apple pie practice of White superiority.
We toil as some are shielded by the credo of “all men are created equal,” but others are not.
America is a mass of contradiction and hypocrisy.
People of Color, women, LGBTQIA, and immigrants are the “others.”
We and our allies are dubbed “the enemy within.”
Only certain White men and their allies are true Americans.
Because America “is for Americans and Americans only.”
White Christian friends accuse me of being angry and fearful.
I respond by asking them to listen to what the former president and his allies say.
Black people carve watermelons for Halloween.
Puerto Rico is “a pile of garbage.”
Jews are ridiculed because in a theoretical game of rock, paper, scissors with Palestinians, “Jews have trouble throwing the paper” (money).
And yet, people still wonder why we who are considered “other” are prepared to end longtime friendships over this election.
They say, “don’t end a relationship because of two people who don’t even know you.”
That’s not the reason we’re ending relationships.
We’re ending relationships because people who know us and say they love us don’t care enough to vote for our best interests.
These so-called “friends” vote as if they live in America by themselves.
They are blind to what the former president does, deaf to what he and his allies say, and are unable to comprehend the consequences of reelecting him.
Most People of Color, women, LGBTQIA+, and immigrants are not constrained by such ignorance.
Neither are a fast-growing number of White allies.
Former Republicans who are intelligent and honest enough to put principles over party.
Christians who realize that the former president is not among their ranks.
Former voters for the former president who realize their mistake and are savvy enough not to repeat it.
People who did not vote in 2016 because they didn’t think their vote mattered, but who realize their vote may make the difference between freedom and fascism.
The number of “enemies within” grows daily.
The former president and his minions are daily adding more of the disaffected to the roster.
It is “us versus them” whether we like it or not.
It is those of us still dreaming of the America referred to in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution versus a country resembling the Third Reich.