The Struggle Continues

From an online article in The Smithsonian magazine

By R. T. Andrews

‘Lord, we ain’t what we oughta be. We ain’t what we want to be. We ain’t what we gonna be. But thank God, we ain’t what we was.’

That sentiment, expressed by Martin Luther King at an Emancipation centennial event in 1962, can be felt across much of the land this morning.

You could sense the nation’s collective sigh of relief last night as the country began the ceremonial transition, from its Tasmanian devil of a president and his wooden sidekick of a veep, to the reassuring presence of an Uncle Joe, accompanied by his potential rock star of a governing partner, Kamala Harris.

‘Lord, we ain’t what we oughta be. We ain’t what we want to be. We ain’t what we gonna be. But thank God, we ain’t what we was.’

The United States in 1862 was a nation literally at war with itself. Rebels were fighting to preserve a way of life that other parts of the country wanted to leave behind: chattel slavery, religious bigotry, nativism, xenophobia.

For the past four years it seems as if those alternative visions of the world were still being contested. Make America Great Again was a very thin code for a nostalgic call to a past where black people were underfoot, women were in the kitchen, gays were in the closet, and white men were ascendant, under precious few obligations of restraint. Police busted heads on the regular without fear of reprisal, women were silent over all manner of violation, shaming and disbelief being normal consequences for truth telling. Anything outside of an able bodied heterosexual white man was deviant and ‘less than’ by definition.

The irresistible forces of diversity — which is to say, the natural conditions of humankind — have been taking it on the chin and in the solar plexus these last four years. The assault has been played out relentlessly on the airwaves: governance by ego, rooted in confederate nostalgia and counterfeit reality, manipulated offstage as always by forces of unmitigated greed that produce historic wealth inequality.

While the trumpian coronavirus has been momentarily exorcised from the White House, its residence there did incalculable damage to the organs of America: our infrastructure of government, our politics, our society, and our culture.

To expect a Biden administration to restore the status quo that existed before trumpism entered the open sores of our society is fantasy. For the moment we can breathe more easily because the inflammation has receded, that incessant tweeting pain has subsided.

But COVID-19 is still here, wreaking havoc with our health and our economy. To defeat it will require and the immediate attention and intelligent aggression of the new administration, as well as patience by American citizens, who are already fatigued by mask-wearing, social distancing, Zoom meetings, and lost conveniences.

Patience has seldom been a virtue of our national character. While Trump fatigue may be in our rear view mirror, one early measure of the Biden administration will be its ability to forge sufficient consensus around mask-wearing and quarantines while an effective vaccine is developed and distributed.

That won’t be easy. The new president will have a thin margin in the House and implacable opposition in the Senate. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell may extend some good ol’ boy collegiality towards Biden, a former colleague, but he will continue to stand resolutely in the gap against anything remotely resembling progress.

Vice President-elect Kamala Harris superimposed upon the shadow of Norman Rockwell's
1964 illustration of six-year old Ruby Bridges as she was accompanied by US Marshals in the
desegregation of public schools in New Orleans.

Finally, a word on the new Vice President. It is of course far too early to tell, but her elevation to national leadership status may prove to be the most consequential harbinger of a new generation. Barack Obama cracked open a door in a notorious manner, ushering in a twenty-four second “post-racial” America that was immediately followed by in true American fashion by nativistic American backlash. But Kamala Harris, on the strength of black women, has eased into the sidecar seat, from which she is positioned both symbolically and realistically, to change the landscape irrevocably.

To put it another way, there was no guarantee that the Jackie Robinson experiment to integrate major league baseball would succeed. If Obama was Jackie, Kamala is Willie Mays and Roberto Clemente. There is no turning back.

• • •• • •

ABOUT LAST NIGHT's DEBATE • Cleveland Heads to World Series

I was a 19-year-old college sophomore majoring in political science when I learned to recognize a certain kind of b.s. I wasn't a serious student at the time but I did habitually keep up on current affairs. I was an avid reader of the weekly newsmagazines — Newsweek, Time, US News & World Report — the New York Times and the local Philadelphia Bulletin. I was well armed to defend my opinions in the debates about the world that college students engage with gusto.

One of my roommates — the starting halfback on our mediocre football team — regularly throttled my arguments in our debates by his uncanny use of statistics. He could always take the wind out of my sails by referencing irrefutably numbers like 67% of this or 73% of that. My shoulders would shrink as my arguments bumped against the stony force of his numerical fortress.

Halfway through football season, it dawned on me that, unlike our more scholarly roommates — Doug and Wilbur — Toby seldom could be found with his nose in a book, much less any source of facts that could back his positions. When I began to challenge Toby to cite his sources he would feign loss of memory or retreat into ambiguity. Gaining the upper hand, I relentlessly pounded him to cite even one source.

Finally, one day Toby collapsed in paroxysms of sheepish laughter when forced to admit that his vaunted stats were all concocted. The four of us celebrated his tattered charade with some suds at the local pub.

Toby was a sweet and amiable guy, literally a Philadelphia Quaker, who is unbelievably close to becoming the next president of the United States. But I think of him whenever I listen to his characterological antithesis: the ignorant, immoral, unethical, unhinged, New York charlatan whose braggadocio would put even Art Modell to shame.

According to this celebrity telemarketer, everything President Obama or Hillary Clinton have done is a "disaster", an utter failure, and “the worst in history". Every country in the world is beating us in trade. Nobody respects us. Our generals suck. Crime is at historic highs. Our inner cities uniformly suck. Life has never been worse for African Americans. The Chinese and Mexicans outsmart us daily and will soon overrun the country. Unless radical foreign terrorists beat them to it.

Only the Great Telemarketer can save us! Want proof? He has built a Great Company! (Don't mention the multiple bankruptcies, failed casinos — how can you lose your shirt running a casino? — or ask to see his tax returns!) He knows more about ISIS than the generals. He will restore law and order. He will hire the best the people to run the government. (No other president has ever thought of that.) He will bring jobs, jobs, jobs to all of us who need them. And he's gonna build us a huge horizontal tower that somebody else will pay for.

And nobody respects women more than he does. Because he has a big brain.

This stuff is all so clear that the telemarketer doesn't need to cite a single statistic, much less offer a plan. His greatness is so evident, as attested to by Rudy Giuliani, Newt Gingrich, Don King, and Pastor Darrell Scott, that only the vastest of conspiracies — comprised of Democrats, Republicans, Independents, and elected officials in thousands of jurisdictions — could deny him coronation as King, er, president of the United States.

Donald Trump's political career began with his leading the birther movement, a bogus and bigoted dog-whistle assault upon the legitimacy of Barack Obama's citizenship status. His biography claims graduation from a prep military academy (five military deferments for the star athlete) and the University of Pennsylvania. But I suspect his resume omits his true place of higher learning: the Barnum and Bailey School of Fake, Fear, and Fool from which he undoubtedly graduated summa cum sleazy.

• • •

The Cleveland Indians won the American League pennant in Toronto yesterday afternoon, defeating the Blue Jays behind a rookie pitcher's splendid effort, some timely hitting, and baseball's best bullpen.

I didn't want the accomplishment to go unmentioned here, notwithstanding our muted enthusiasm for the team due to its horrid racist mascot, which represents in our view a narrow-minded clinging to offensive traditionalism evocative of the Confederate flag symbolizes to the South.

Apart from that, we share delight in the team's success. For those of you who will be jumping on the bandwagon for the World Series ride, we thought we'd share what we said leading up to the playoffs about the reasons for the team's success to some of our foreign correspondents stationed in places like Maine, Florida, Washington DC, and Seattle, WA.

First and foremost, the Indians are where they are because of a guy who can no longer run, throw, hit or catch. Manager Tito Francona, besides having a deep understanding and love for the game, has uncommon leadership skills that makes all his players focus on team goals as opposed to individual ones. His players have all bought in, which means they stay focused and persevere no matter the obstacles. Guys stay ready and confident, and step up to perform when called upon.

Ups and downs are inevitable in a long season. Francona has kept his guys on an even keel and a steady march. He has a track record of success in this that commands respect. No current manager has a better post-season record, which includes a fabulous 8-0 World Series record.

Add to this the fact that is difficult to name the one indispensable player on the team. It's easy to say Andrew Miller, the mid-season acquisition who was named MVP of the American League Championship Series. But where would the team be without, in no particular order, Francisco Lindor, Jason Kipnis, Corey Kluber, Carlos Santana, Rajai Davis, Jose Ramirez, Mike Napoli, Coco Crisp, Cody Allen, Brian Shaw, Dan Otero, and on and on. Every one of these guys has had bad games, days, or mini-slumps. But their teammates have consistently picked them up. You never know who will be the hero on any given day. It's no longer a surprise when it turns out to be Tyler Naquin or Ryan Merritt.

Individually, the team has only one everyday superstar, the shortstop Lindor, and he is just budding. But collectively, they have the best infield in the League, with bat or glove, the best manager, the best bullpen, and the best base running, a bona fide ace in Kluber, and a lineup where any spot one through nine can deliver the clutch hit or the sacrifice bunt. They have a bunch of guys who believe in each other and their leader. And they have home field advantage backed by Cavaliers momentum. They may be underdogs to whoever emerges from the Dodgers-Cubs series, but they have the best chance to win a World Series since 1954. And Willie Mays has retired.

Go Cleveland!