The Revolution Will Not Come From Our Candidates
The revolution must come from us.
I was 16 when Obama was elected president, and every bit of my being believed he was going to fix the world. My family and I drove down to DC for his inauguration. We wanted to witness a miracle, we wanted to watch the tide turn. So we packed onto a train of other beaming Black people. At dawn, his disciples flooded the streets like migratory birds. We believed Obama would bring us warmer weather.
He campaigned on hope and I was hopeful. He campaigned on possibility and I felt limitless. But today — on the cusp of another candidate’s reign — I see him speak, and I feel different, disenchanted.
It’s not Obama who makes me feel this way. He walks out on stage, and I swell with pride. Because he taught me the potential for progress, Obama belongs to me, transgressions and all. He speaks of maintained faith in America, and I want to believe along with him — but I don’t, not anymore, at least not fully.
Yesterday, on my train to the DNC, drunken delegates approached me with a question.
“So, miss, are you for Hillary, or for Bernie?”
Their dozens of Bernie pins tipped me off on the trick question. But I was too pregnant, too hot, and too tired, for disengaging through dishonesty.
“Neither,” I said, before looking away, “I’m detached from every single person involved.”
That night, our media tent was swarmed and a sit in was staged. They corked their mouths with ties and gags to exemplify their silencing. They think their revolution’s been stifled, that the change that Bernie would bring was too radical and too immense for the DNC to allow. They protest into the void where most American discontent goes.
In response, the police blocked the doors, and no one could exit or enter. I missed the speeches of the Mothers of the Movement. Moments earlier, the Bernie brouhaha chanted “Black Lives Matter.”
I could tell it was the first time many of them had ever felt disenfranchised. I could tell that they believe our system will change if enough of them tell it to. And I felt agitated, annoyed, that it was all for a presidential candidate. Bernie was never going to bring about a revolution.
What I’ve learned in the last 8 years, through time and constant collective trauma, is that no revolution or dramatic change will come from inside of our system.
Tonight, Obama says the change our country forges is hard and slow, and I believe it’s true. But too many of us can’t afford to keep waiting for change. Centuries are too much time to spend convincing a country to give us our humanity, and it has been far too many centuries too long.
I see these protesters and feel cynicism and frustration. So it’s your first ride on the oppression train, I think, you just realized the system is rigged. Come and join us, then, let’s fight for something new.
But they don’t join us. Instead, they shout at the system for being itself. They still expect it to give them everything that it promised them. And because of that, I detach from them too. Their movement doesn’t move me. Their movement moves in circles I can’t connect with.
I still have optimism, hope. I still believe the world can change. I still believe in inherent goodness at the heart of people. I still believe that we can heal, that we can all have our humanity. I still believe that we can quell all the suffering we cause.
And despite the fact that I’m still voting, in the same way I pray on the slim chance of Heaven, I no longer believe the system will give me my rights if I shout loud enough. I no longer believe the President has that kind of power. I’ve seen the system work exactly as it’s meant to, in ways that keep my people oppressed. I’ve seen the system fill its belly on our aching. I stopped hoping for the system to fill my cup.
If we want change, we have to make it. It won’t come quickly from politicians. It must come from coming together — a revolution without obligation to the system we’re fighting to revolutionize. If we want change, we have to change the way we seek it. If we want change, we must elect ourselves to make it.
