On Moving On

"Trump won Pennsylvania" shouted a man in constant fervor since the morning. Our heartbeats collectively stopped momentarily, only to sink to the depths of hell. A lecture on African Regional Communities was about to start, but we could not move on. Our faces were full of despair, looking at our blue-lit screens only catastrophizing what was to come. Searching for hope, only for shooting stars to hide behind a black and ominous thunderstorm. "Sure he won the presidency, but what about the Senate and House". Oh…. "Sure they have control of all three branches, but what about the Supreme Court, or Checks and Balances, our Bureaucracy, and so on until we find a single amendment, rule, or law to cling onto to tell us everything will be okay".

The truth is that everything will not be okay, everything is not currently okay, and we must disregard any hope that our leaders will guide us into a more progressive and inclusive future. This does not mean we should rot, or leave the country. Giving up on hope means relinquishing our fear. We only lose ourselves in hope because we are scared of what will happen. And fear will exterminate our rights and turn us into ants unable to stand up to a householder even with a whole colony in solidarity.

I can hope a crazy MAGA Republican will not somehow stumble on this blog and have me jailed as one of the 'vermin' in this country, but once it starts to happen, my hope will diminish. I will only be left with fear and self-censor, giving even greater power to the state. If I had no fear of prison, no fear of what they would do to the 'enemy from within' I could be vicious with my words and even in prison be okay.

These are some big words from a little man. And I am scared. I am anxious. I am nervous. I am clinging on to hope, but I cannot let that control my actions.

What will be our action?

Action is our best tool to conquer our fears, I know it hasn't even been 24 hours since the results are in and people just want to be sad for the day, but this sadness and despair will not bring us out of fear. Action and seeing real positive change will be the only way to quell our anxieties and the total power of the state.

In our class on regional communities in Africa, I decided to write some notes regarding this:

What are we worried about?

Look into what could come from the Trump presidency, whether it's Project 2025, his speeches, what his contractors say, or what red states have been doing on a local level.

For me I am most worried about his mass deportation plans, crackdowns on the 'enemy within', and national bans on 'Critical Race Theory' and 'Woke Educators'. I then started thinking of the worst-case scenario for all of these policies and then what type of community systems would make the state powerless.

What could a community do to help the most vulnerable when ICE comes to town?

How can your local district 'break bad laws' while ensuring funding?

How can we protect protestors and journalists from massive crackdowns safely and securely?

For all these questions I propose the best answer usually involves the most amount of people. If communities could be on high alert when ICE comes to town using a variety of creative and intelligent schemes to physically protect migrants, by using human barriers or hiding them in homes the state would not be able to do their terrible job. To defend socio-historical teachings in grade school, massive amounts of people need to show up to their Board of Education Meetings to ensure there is a plan to protect educators, books, and curriculums that tell a real history of the United States. No apparatus, no matter how grand, bountiful, and abundant, possesses unlimited resources. In cracking down, which is what this administration will do, it uses up resources. The more they crack down the farther thin they are stretched. To defeat the United Kingdom, it took World War II, for India to finally stretch the crown out. For us, it is no different. We do not need a World War but we can create a disruption greater than it.

Disruption does not mean violence or massive bombing campaigns against our country. Disruptions mean to break our unjust laws at such a massive scale that would make the state powerless. Yes, the government could tear gas an encampment in DC, but does the government have the capacity to terrorize protestors in every small, medium and major city if they stood their ground for a year straight. Yes, the government could imprison a lone teacher explaining the history of racism and telling kids about sexuality and gender identity, but could the state imprison every teacher in the country? Could the state jail every medical practitioner giving out abortions?

There are people in our country who will support crackdowns of journalists and protestors. There are teachers in this country who do not want to teach a people's history. There are doctors who are afraid to give out abortions. But this only means we have work to do, and if we work patiently, persistently, diligently and intelligently we are bound to be successful.