by JENICE ARMSTRONG
Former Vice President Joe Biden is fond of saying, “This is not who we are.”
I like him. He wasn’t my first choice for president, but I voted for Uncle Joe. I’m rooting for him as the final election results are being tabulated.
But the fact that roughly half of Americans voted to reelect President Donald Trump, despite four years of watching his lying and hateful ways, shows just how wrong Biden is when he says, “This is not who we are. We are better than this.”
Biden makes this statement in reference to a lot of things — our treatment of undocumented immigrants, Trump’s division of Americans based on “race, religion, gender, national origin,” and after mass shootings. Advertisement
But I beg to differ.
This is so who we are. And, unfortunately, we are not better than this. America has been on this path since this country’s ignoble inception when our forefathers enslaved Blacks, exterminated Native Americans, and denied women the right to vote.
It’s why we shouldn’t be surprised that roughly half of American voters knowingly supported a racist and misogynist whose administration separated more than 500 migrant children from their parents and downplayed a virus that has cost more than 230,000 people their lives.
Nearly half of voters apparently care more about their red hats and their MAGA tribe than shoring up the Affordable Care Act and ensuring that all Americans have access to health care. Apparently the threat of stripping funds from Social Security, turning our backs on the Paris Climate Agreement and removing environmental regulations matter less to them than riding the Trump train.
Roughly half of the Americans who cast ballots were OK with doing so for a man who has denigrated the Black Lives Matter movement and expressed support for Confederate memorials and white supremacists such as the Proud Boys, whom he told to “stand back and stand by.” Make America Great Again indeed!
It’s sobering how so many millions still voted to reelect this disaster of a president, proving just how deeply divided we are as a nation.
After the last four years, we should be talking now about how Biden won by a landslide, not watching as right-wing protesters attempt to block vote counting in Michigan or worrying about what other madness there is to come.
I hate to be pessimistic, but President Barack Obama tried to take it on. It was too much for him, too. It’s too deeply rooted in the fabric of America. It always has been, even before suffragettes and civil rights activists began demonstrating and demanding basic rights that should have been enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.
When Biden ultimately prevails — as it appears he will — and moves into the White House, he won’t be able to bridge this gulf.
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“Sharity, Not Charity“: The Story Behind The Boldest TED Talk
“Good afternoon, I am Mallence. I come from the richest country in the world, located in the richest continent in the world.”
Followed by an African map appearing on the big screen, the tone was set for the boldest TED Talk in January 2015 in Berlin. When I first played Mallence-Bart Williams’ video during my Fashion Scenarios in Emerging Markets class, it took my IFA Paris MBA students at least two minutes to recover from her hypnotizing deep voice, regalness, and unapologetic delivery of rather unpopular facts. Why? It forces viewers to see abundance where we have been conditioned to see lack.
The class was able to connect to the German-Sierra-Leonean’s essence, merely dressed in her actual words. A student from Australia said: “It’s almost like we have been collectively lied to. I feel bad because Africa is always presented in a negative light and I too had these preconceived notions of others needing our help which is actually quite egotistical.”
For classmates hailing from so called “emerging” countries including the Philippines, Colombia, India, Iran, Nepal and Indonesia, Williams’ mantra: “Sharity, not charity” came as an overly empowering epiphany. I wanted to personally thank her, but finding a needle in a haystack would have been easier. “I don’t think I really have an address. I predominantly live in my body, that is the place to be.”Luckily, serendipity (or the Instagram algorithm gods) pointed me in her direction.
Williams, a quintessential globetrotter pursued her studies in economics and finance in Paris, Singapore, and the UK. Today, she lives across the globe, produces an all-natural cosmetics line in Hong Kong, and is the founder and creative director of the Freetown-based creative collective FOLORUNSHO, a ‘SHARITY’ initiated with street kids in Sierra Leone. This past February, she spontaneously booked a ticket to New York City where I met her for the first time.
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