Election Day is Not the End

Photo: Edmond Dantes

This article was originally published by The Emancipator.

Today is Election Day, and we’re all tired. 

As journalists who work for a magazine that seeks solutions to racial inequity, we get it: bigotry is exhausting. 

Donald Trump’s third run for the Presidency has been enough to make anyone want to crawl under the covers until it’s over. Once again, his campaign rhetoric and policy proposals have been rife with racism, sexism, antisemitism, and apologia for autocrats and plutocrats alike. It’s all the more exhausting when one considers that conservative justices he appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court promised him impunity should he return to the White House. 

Even if we manage to elect Vice President Kamala Harris to the presidency, the first woman to occupy this office, and one born with Jamaican and Tamil Indian heritage, the foul forces that have made this such a close race will be no less powerful.

There is precious little rest to be had in the ongoing fight for equity.

We’ve seen a biracial Black candidate soar above racist voting predilections to win the White House, prompting premature declarations of a “post-racial America.” Folks were eager to embrace the “audacity of hope,” but the nation didn’t want to do the work. 
Four years later, we also saw an alleged “racial reckoning,” prompted by the spectacle of Black death from police violence and a disease that disproportionately ravaged communities of color. In the wake of this moment, The Emancipator launched to fill in the gap in mainstream coverage by connecting the same type of advocacy journalism that powered the anti-slavery movement to the antiracist struggles of today.

Fast forward to now and the police violence that drove tens of thousands to march in the streets barely makes the evening news. For every book bought by someone new to their racial consciousness, another has been banned. 

This collective amnesia at scale is nothing new, though communities of color have long memories. Remember, after 12 years of Reconstruction came the “Redeemers” and generations of Jim Crow discrimination and violence.  In a nation with Indigenous and Black blood at its very root, what we saw after 2020 wasn’t “blowback,” per se. Some may claim that injustices such as voter suppression, the Chinese Exclusion Act, the annexation of Hawaii, and redlining are America working “as intended.” We see it now as people consciously working against what America can still become. 

Whether or not we are able to help Harris make history only marks the continuance of unfinished work. 

We cannot effectively mitigate or end racism without mitigating or ending every form of bigotry, and we can assure you that you will continue to see that equal attention and passion reflected here in The Emancipator. We invite you to join us in this fight, no matter the results of this election. 

There will be plenty, of course, who don’t think our mission is essential to maximizing the potential of this American project. That isn’t just Trump, but those neighbors of ours who would readily hand unlimited power over to him. They can’t or refuse to see this country as “great” without an open spigot of hatred directed at our most vulnerable populations. Blaming the “other” has always been easier than accountability, and Trump may be the apotheosis of that mindset. Voting is a key way to combat that, but our our efforts cannot and must not end when we cast our ballots. Especially this time.

Elections don’t end or stop racism. They certainly can make racism even worse. What culminates today, as the polls close, is not an ending. We’re now entering the next chapter of this struggle, not the last. We do not doubt that Trump’s brand of bigotry will persist well past this election, no matter its result. So then must we. (Perhaps after a quick nap.)