1.) We will have said goodbye to the first black family to lead the White House.
2.) We will have celebrated the legacy of a civil rights leader reduced and ‘Disney-fied’ to an “I Have A Dream” speech. We’ll read and hear his most cited quote about judging each other on the content of our characters while forgetting more radical statements such as:
“Why is equality so assiduously avoided? Why does white America delude itself, and how does it rationalize the evil it retains? The majority of white Americans consider themselves sincerely committed to justice for the Negro. They believe that American society is essentially hospitable to fair play and to steady growth toward a middle-class Utopia embodying racial harmony. But unfortunately this is a fantasy of self-deception and comfortable vanity.”
3.) We will have inaugurated a president that has earned the following editor’s note from the Huff Post:
“Donald Trump is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, birther and bully who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims — 1.6 billion members of an entire religion — from entering the U.S.”
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4.) The immediate day after his inauguration, we will have witnessed the Women’s March on Washington with smaller sister marched planned in other cities. See the full agenda and platform here.
5.) We will have *most likely* seen the confirmation of attorney general, Jeff Sessions. A man who, in reference to the KKK, was quoted as saying “those bastards; I used to think they were OK, but they are pot smokers.”
This is what I meant when I first wrote about Contradictions in the United States of Amnesia,
“One of the most peacefully violent countries in existence, not only politically, but economically, socially, psychologically and spiritually. It’s in a constant state of hypocrisy–that dance between reality and idealism, democracy and corruption, love and indifference, revolution and tranquility.”
Political tension in this country is nearing a very palpable boiling point. History has taught me that the boiling point is almost always followed by violence. Anything is possible in Trump’s America. What are your predictions? How much longer can we dance in that constant state of hypocrisy?
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Photo: Getty Images