I awoke this morning thinking there are only 24 hours left in Obama’s presidency. I flashed back to eight years ago tomorrow watching with pride and hope as President Obama was sworn into office. I remembered the optimism of knowing the girls would see the first African American President and the pleasant surprise of knowing our country voted for hope, change and even put a black man in charge. Then, I thought of Shayna. She was 9 at the time. Shayna is 17 now. I thought “Shayna would be 17.” and in my head I heard her say “I am 17. Don’t get it twisted.” At that moment I opened my eyes and looked at the clock. The time was 7:17.
Then, I started thinking about what we are about to experience. I know when I say this many will dismiss it as partisanship, but it’s not. We are about to swear in the most unqualified man who has ever held that office. I truly believe this. The cabinet hearings this week have been a nightmare as person after person with no government experience or no experience in the area they’ve been nominated for or both sits and shows that they are as unqualified as Donald Trump. Then, I wondered “How did we get here?”
White privilege is the first thing that came to mind. Had a black man had even one of the strikes against him that Donald Trump did, he wouldn’t have made it out of the primaries. Trump is the anti-Obama. Crude, rude, thin-skinned, intellectually uncurious, petty and inarticulate. Trump has shown himself to be misogynistic, Islamaphobis, racist, a bully and a xenophobe. And these qualities didn’t disqualify him from the presidency. Many of his supporters actually held them up as virtues. Only a white man could get away with the things Trump has said and done and have won the Presidency. Trump got a pass on things that would have sunk others. Trump is the affirmative action President.
Tomorrow, at noon, we begin to reap what we have sown. The Obama administration will be gone. Trump and his band of deplorable are moving in. All we can hope is it’s not as bad as it could be.
