Back to “normal?”

November 28, 2020

      If the past four years have taught us anything, it is that clinging to the myths we were raised on can be deadly.  In four years we have learned just how stubbornly resilient the myth of white supremacy is, and just how much it permeates every facet of our society, from the consequential to the quotidian.  To our credit, a thunderingly large number of us repudiated white supremacy at the ballot box, delivering a resounding defeat to Trump, which has been repeatedly validated in the courts.  For this, we should be truly thankful.

     We must resist the temptation, though, to see the election of Biden/Harris as the end of our work, rather than the beginning.  Doing so glosses over the Herculean effort it took to overcome the barriers embedded in a system that enshrines minority rule.  It is time we took a long hard look at the structure of the American “democracy” that we have long lionized as proof of our “exceptionalism.”

     Too many of us treat the Constitution like scripture and the Founding Fathers like deities.  That deification ignores the contradiction inherent in declaring that “all men are created equal,” while simultaneously designing a system to allow human beings to own and profit from the unpaid labor of other human beings.  It ignores the abhorrent dehumanization of Black people required to sustain such a system and how it required the doctrine of white supremacy to be threaded through all of our foundational systems, from the Electoral College to the anti-majoritarian design of the U.S. Senate.  Lastly, and most significantly, treating our founding documents and their authors this way induces paralysis, robbing us of the agency required to build a democracy fit for a 21st century multicultural reality, in which women are full citizens, and civil rights are not dependent on property ownership.

     Despite knowing this, many of us are eager to simply “turn the page,” and return to “normal.”  Such selfish desires ignore the fact that our “normal” was untenable for a wide swath of Americans. Accepting a “normal” that erased the history and very existence of Indigenous Americans and treated the state sponsored murder and suffering of Black and Brown people as acceptable collateral damage is how we elected Trump.

      Trump was far from a singular danger. This is evident in the response by those in authority to the surging pandemic, which ignores the disproportionate effect of the pandemic on communities of color.  It is evident in the actions of Trump acolyte governors like South Dakota’s Kristi Noem, who is heedless of the devastating impact of the coronavirus on her state’s Indigenous population and is actively fighting the efforts of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe to protect itself, (Source:  “As South Dakota takes hands-off approach to coronavirus, Native Americans feel vulnerable,” by Erik Ortiz, NBCnews.com, 11/25/20).

     It is evident in the 5-4 decision issued by the Supreme Court in Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn v. Cuomo, which overturned the narrowly tailored restriction on in person religious services as violative of the First Amendment’s free exercise clause.  In his concurring opinion, Justice Gorsuch glibly contrasts the ability of bike shops and liquor stores to remain open, ignoring the fact unlike bike shops and liquor stores, in person religious services present the precise conditions known by medical experts to facilitate the spread of the virus—“large groups of people, gathering, speaking and singing in close proximity indoors for extended periods of time,” (Source:  Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn v. Cuomo, 592 U.S. ___ (2020) dissenting opinion of Sotomayor, J.).

       This decision, which directly contradicts two decisions from earlier this year, reflects the replacement of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, with religious ideologue, Amy Coney Barrett.  This new majority is signaling that, in the name of protecting the ”free exercise of religion,”  it will elevate the parochial concerns of religious groups over the rights of the broader public, paving the way for the erosion of  legal protections afforded to LGBTQ people, women and people of color.  Justice Alito and Justice Thomas have already explicitly asked that marriage equality be reconsidered, a point that Justice Alito reiterated in his speech to The Federalist Society earlier this month.

We must reject our uniquely American mythology, or we will find ourselves four years from now fighting off a smoother, smarter, Trump. Hard as it may be, we must reject a return to “normal.” Tell Justices Alito, Coney Barrett, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Thomas that it was Jesus Christ who said, “You shall know the truth and it shall set you free.” It’s time to live in the truth.