Two days after my sister Sharrin recovered from the shock of Donald Trump’s success at the polls, she called me to vent.
I got a phone call Thursday afternoon around 2pm two days after the election of President-elect Donald J. Trump, her voice was not cracking with post tears disappointment but with anger. She asked me what I thought went wrong, because she is a Hillary supporter. I could hear in her voice she was looking for solace as well as an explanation. I launched into the accepted and conventional reasons, angry white (working class) Americans, xenophobic bigotry and racial animosity that has been bubbling since the election of President Obama. She wanted none of it. After a few moments, I realized the call was made to give her a place to let go of her emotional confusion.
My sister is a ‘Black’ middle class worker, an army veteran, mother and grandmother. All the groups that had at some point during his campaign been insulted. She was told by Mr. Trump, she lives in an African American hell-scape; The fraternity of brothers and sisters that she volunteered and risked her life to be a part of, were not worthy soldiers if captured or had less value if they were first generation Americans. Most appalling to her, was the realization that a sexual assault on her, her daughter or someday her granddaughter could be justified with boys will be boys’ acceptance. Despite it all, he won, “Mitchell how could this happen,” she shouted.
I could hear the whistling of the wind, seeping through what I assumed was a slightly rolled down car window, as she drove her Virginia neighborhood.
My confidant, educated sister who served her country honorably, graduated college and works hard, seemed vulnerable for the first time since we were kids. Not since a childhood fight, when she looked for me to defend her, had I wanted more to be there to give her a hug. I have thought a lot about that conversation since that Thursday afternoon and all the women in my life, companions, my two sisters, my granddaughters and every woman I pass on the street now. The soon to be President of the United States said in graphic terms, if you meet a famous guy, grabbing and groping you is just a part of your subservience. My great-grandmother raised the two of us. She was born in 1903 and lived through the lynchings of family and friends, hearing news of that, “colored woman” in Montgomery, Alabama who refused to give a white man her seat on the bus, Jackie Robinson stealing home and the death of Martin Luther King Jr.
I remember her telling me her fondest wish was living longer than southern white Sheriff Bull Connor. Eugene “Bull” Connor died in 1973. Our great-grandmother, Annie Beatrice Yates died in 1979. As much as we missed her, we took comfort in the fact that she outlived hatred. My sister shared a room with our great-granny and was with her when she died. I think for just a moment when she woke up post-election morning 11/9 she felt a little bit of granny’s dream had died too.
Vote 2018, it’s not too late!