The F*ckery of It All

If you can't tell by the title, this is a lament.

Photo by Jonny Caspari on Unsplash

FUUUUUUUUUUCK! I don’t even know how to begin. I don’t have a plan for this post. I’m just putting my fingers to the keyboard and allowing what’s in my heart to emerge. Hopefully, it will make sense. Maybe it will even have a point.

Amerikkka got me again. It made me hopeful. And then it tied my hope to a stake, doused it in gasoline, and lit a match. Amerikkkans danced while my hope writhed in agony, the flames ripping away its skin. They danced as my smoldering hope lay numb, the nerves having been burned away. They dance still as my hope suffocates, its respiratory tract damaged by heat.

The dancers are not who I thought they would be. White nationalists sent out invitations and other people joined the party. There were more Latino, Native American, urban, and younger partiers this time around (despite the media misinformation, Black men’s support for Kamala was essentially the same as it had been for Joe Biden in 2020). A lot of my Gen X cohort was there, mainly the White ones. Some radical leftists were there, too, not dancing, but sitting with their backs turned. My hope burned.

From NBC News, “Exit Polls,” updated 11/08/2024.

The thing was, I never wanted to hope in the first place. I thought my hope had died in 2016, replaced by a cold, hard pragmatism, one that had no skin or nerves to destroy. When, four months ago, people began to call for Joe Biden to withdraw from the race, my pragmatism screamed, “No! It’s too late. We need a win, even if it’s lukewarm.” When people began to suggest Kamala as an alternative, my realism spoke up, “If they didn’t support Hillary, there’s no way they’ll support a Black South Indian woman.” But when Biden withdrew to support Kamala’s candidacy, the explosion of excitement was contagious. It turned out that I wasn’t as inoculated against hope as I thought. I was infected.

It was a tempered hope, at best. People who run for national office tend to believe in Amerikkka a lot more than I do. I did not expect the election of Kamala Harris to overturn this country’s legacy of oppression. I didn’t expect her to stand up against Israel because settler colonialism is more American than apple pie. But I was hoping she might at least refrain from sending them weapons and push more assertively for a two-state solution. Mostly, I hoped that Kamala would defeat a candidate whose hatred for Muslims is so intense that he might cheer on Israel’s genocidal war, who will actively work to roll back the rights of gender and sexual minorities, who brags about wanting to deport more people than any other US president, and who does not believe in climate change even in the aftermath of a brutal storm season. I hoped her election would be a firewall against the MAGA wildfire that threatens so many people, even as I feared that she would face more strident misogynoir than the racist backlash that Obama faced.

And now again, my hopefulness is in flames. Will it finally die? I would like it to. I would like to stop believing in the possibility of better, in the possibility of a more just country. I would like to stop believing in the possibility of American Christians to act like followers of Christ: to care about immigrants, the poor, the disabled, the imprisoned, and the marginalized more than they care about their own financial interests. I would like to stop believing in the possibility of White Christians to put their religious identity ahead of their racial and class identities.

Christians are a resurrection people, and here I am, praying for death to be the final word. Because every time my hope is resurrected, it is crucified again. This time I want to bury it. Let’s skip the homegoing celebration and go straight to the graveside. I don’t want to hear encouragement. I don’t need friends like Job’s who come through with their spiritual bypassing, covering over the hurt with clichés like “God is in control” and “Jesus is still on the throne.” There’s nothing wrong with my faith. There’s a lot wrong with the people who claim to share it.

What I need is people to sit with me in lament, in grief for the hope that has died, for the hope that keeps dying. If that’s you, leave a comment below. If it’s not, silence is always a good option.