I cannot say that I’ve ever fully trusted white women, but I realized they were not my friend in 2014. I am sure if I had the bandwidth today I could look back and see earlier instances but bandwidth is lacking today.

I got into the bed last night around 9. I watched the numbers coming in and saw the no loss and at times gain of 47 and understood to avoid a repeat of 2016 I had to gather myself. Since 2016 I’ve had an up close encounter of the dangers of proximity to whiteness so I suppose that immunized me in part. In 2014 though it was my attorney at one of the ugliest times of my life who showed me that a white woman would stand next to me, appear to defend me, and at the same time wish I did not exist. So many other things were going on back then I did not make the attempt to understand it. I recognized it though and filed it where all the other life lessons go in Nicole brain.

I won’t rehash here the trauma of 2016. I have fresh trauma to process and I lack the time, resources and skill to mourn properly today or tomorrow. Life continues and understanding just how fucked we all are doesn’t give me the luxury of shedding my tears beyond today.

America has a problem and that problem isn’t me or those like me.

The lesson to be learned if one is interested in that sort of thing in this moment is that this country has moved further and further to the ‘right’ as white men chased power that there is not escape from that in my lifetime. Bill Clinton was the beginning and it’s continued. Even Uncle Joe amazing human that he is governed right.

VP Harris is my birthday twin so I know 100% what she is capable of, yet she ain’t progressive.

The harm which is arriving to all of us can’t be mitigated. What’s worse in a sense is once his acolytes experience the harm they won’t learn the lesson, instead they will double and triple down and who comes next is even worse.

I took solace that being here in California meant I was partly insulated. Then I saw my neighbors say no to rent control, no to abolishing slave labor via the prisons and understood the mold had spread to every part of America.

Like every Black woman before me I can allow myself a moment to grieve. Not 2 but 1. The pain is worse when I understand that I failed to insulate the Black women who will come after me from living my life.