I did not just fall out of a coconut tree

on Kamala, Black August and leading with compassion

Image credit: Glamour Magazine

It’s truly amazing how quickly the tide has shifted for the democratic party since President Biden finally conceded his campaign for re-election and endorsed VP Kamala Harris as the nominee. Many people went from feeling completely dejected to filled with an Obama-era brand of sanguine optimism. At this current stage, it’s hard to argue against the need for harm reduction and ensuring another Trump presidency does not happen, so I understand why some folks may view this as a reprieve, but whether this is cause for celebration remains debatable. Most level-headed adults would find putting all of their hopes and desires for fulfilled needs into one person unwise, yet presidential candidates seem to be a collective exception to this line of thinking. There is a mountain of issues we have lost so much progress on that we have yet to begin climbing over, even with a presidential candidate who is breaking racial and gender barriers. I am not a political analyst, and I’m also not in the business of telling people who to vote for. I am, however, a well-read active voter who feels it’s necessary to hold the people whose salaries we pay accountable. And the premature celebration of a presidential candidate who has worked in an administration that has caused irreparable harm to the most vulnerable among us is certainly not holding her accountable.

There are many Black women who are very excited about the possibility of having a Black woman as POTUS; I do not happen to be one of them. I am not particularly moved by representational progress in any realm because it reminds me of the centuries of deferred dreams and belated recognition we continue to endure. The fact that “the first Black____” continues to be a headline in the year 2024 is shameful; we have been here for FOUR HUNDRED years. I also have no expectations that anyone who holds the presidential office, whether they be Black, a woman, a Democrat, or a socialist, will accomplish what we are in dire need of with the current state of Congress and SCOTUS without a lot of organizing and pressure from voters, many of whom have been gleefully rocked back to sleep under the false assumption that we are finally making the progress we so desperately need. What has become clear to me is that most people are very willing to put their blinders back up simply because Harris is not geriatric, not because she has a significantly different approach to policy than our current POTUS. I know the bar is in hell but damn.

If the change isn't transformative, I don't want it.

When Harris’ presidential run was announced, a quote from a 2023 speech where she talks about how her mother used to tell her, “I don’t know what’s wrong with you young people, you think you just fell out of a coconut tree?”, was recirculated through emojis, TikTok mashups and memes. The full context of her quote was about how “we exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you,” which I find incredibly interesting coming from a politician who works in an administration that has continually reframed an active genocide in an occupied territory that has pushed out people who are indigenous to the land as “a right to defend itself.” Kamala has always been full of contradictions. She, like many Democrats, navigates the world, trying to hold together two truths that cannot be reconciled. She speaks of a two-state solution being the only way forward and wants a ceasefire deal that ends the suffering in Gaza while also proclaiming the state of Israel must be secured. If she bothered to listen to what Palestinians have to say, she’d know that it is not possible for their suffering to end while the state of Israel exists— they have been suffering under it for over 75 years. She also has a history of being a prosecutor who significantly increased incarceration rates as a district attorney and pivoted into supporting criminal justice reform as a senator. She currently works under an administration that somehow thinks putting more police on the street is an answer to ending police brutality. Notably, the Biden-Harris administration has endorsed the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which calls for more accountability amongst law enforcement, but they have not made commitments to support Cori Bush’s People’s Response Act, which completely reimagines public safety and de-centers police in responding to non-carceral and health-related crises. There is nothing in Kamala’s track record that suggests she is committed to making radical structural changes. She is always going to play to the side that has the loudest voice or who holds the most electoral power. Having mutable principles doesn’t make her unique; this is true for most people who hold a political office, but there are not enough people having conversations about how these principles must shift and what we stand to lose if they do not.

your silence won't protect you 🍉

Despite her contradictions, I do agree with what she was saying in the coconut tree speech. We do exist in the context of all of which we live and what came before us. We are interconnected with every living being on this earth, the people who come before us, and those who will be here when we are gone. We owe it to ourselves and, most especially, the people who come after us to lead with compassion and reconnect with humanity. And that compassion must be defined by those of us who do not reign atop hierarchies because they do not feel what’s happening in the world the same way we do. This is evident in the way the word “compassion” has been thrown around a few times during this election season. Most recently, an artist I deeply admire, Carrie Mae Weems, designed a billboard with VP Harris on it featuring the tagline “lead with compassion, not complaint.”

carriemaeweems

A post shared by @carriemaeweems

This messaging seems to be a direct counter to a lot of the hateful rhetoric her opponent, Donald Trump, has spewed about making America great again. It is a statement that doesn’t speak to the informed citizens of this country, who have a lot of compassion and a lot of complaints but expresses an ideology about how one should lead a country. The problem with this statement is that leading this country, founded on some of the most horrible crimes imaginable, doesn’t allow space for true compassion because true compassion would upend all of the systems that are holding it in place. You cannot proclaim to be compassionate if you regularly compromise it to appease political agendas or if you work in support of a president who sees absolutely nothing wrong with the current systems in place. Being less horrible than a racist fascist who hates women doesn’t earn you brownie points; it’s the bare minimum of human decency.

I hear a lot of people talk about what’s not possible and how the average American is not smart enough to understand why blindly supporting political candidates is misguided. This is a cop-out that keeps us collectively stunted and subjugated. To me, the bigger issue is people not having the capacity to meet people where they are, have difficult conversations, share information, or even ask people questions they haven’t considered that could potentially broaden their perspectives—especially and specifically the people in our communities who respect us that we can reach. There is also the work of joining or starting community organizations, voting in local elections, and strategizing on how to shift harmful narratives. The hyperindividualism of our culture leads many of us to believe this is not our responsibility. We have become overly reliant on elected officials to show up without interrogating the ways we could do a better job of showing up for ourselves and our communities. This is the work we must do if we want to progress. I get that idealism can come across as naive, unrealistic, or even impossible, but name any form of transformative change that has happened in the world that was not sown through it. If we expect that everyone is and will always be ignorant, then that is what remains, and none of us can afford that right now.

Neutrality is Not a Virtue

It is Black August, a month that commemorates the history of Black resistance and honors the legacy of freedom fighters who lost their lives for our liberation. Because I did not just fall out of a coconut tree, I understand how crucial it is to not let the work of the people who came before us die in vain. We owe it to them to end this cycle of complacency by getting organized, tapping into our communities, and thinking about the skills we can use that will educate, activate, and inspire people to build a future where we don’t have to settle for the lesser of two evils. The potential of this nation lies in our ability to push the politicians we get behind to do more than what they’ve resigned themselves to and also demand more of ourselves in what we are willing to accept. More than “Hotties for Harris” t-shirts and sisters skee-weeing in solidarity with their silk presses, I want to see the people of this country energized to fight— not just against another party and through the candidates we vote for but against the institutions that afford them the power to under-deliver on promises they make to secure our votes. If you have any doubts about your ability to incite change by showing up, speaking out, and shaking the table, just know there are plenty of people you can align yourself with who make it a practice to transmute collective doubt into possibility. It’s up to you to decide if you want to embody the progress you’d like to see in the world or if you want to ride in the backseat of a political bandwagon that is driving around in circles.

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With love,

LaChelle