Ineptitude
“Ineptitude.” -Kamala Harris, 1st woman, and woman of color vice president of the United States of America. On October 7, 2020, during the vice-presidential debates.
Four years of ineptitude, dawning on the people’s new spoken horizon of fierce hope.
At age six, I was forced to watch “Roots’’ and look at history books with lynched black men and women in them. That was my first tattoo in 2002, inked in my mind for the rest of my life. I have known how scary a reality in which racism and evil thrive can be, through film and in the past five hellish years. Though the strange fruit was covered in a different cloth than mine and the photos were black and white, I saw myself in the lifeless Black bodies hanging from a tree or a bridge or a post. I was six years old, and I could see life leaving my body because I knew that evil wasn’t dead.
45’s four years have been the subconscious of my life. A roller-coaster of always knowing people want me dead, or unfed, or poor and defeated — a nightmare where anything inhumane is possible like a Germany in the 40s to a young Jewish Anne.
When I was 11 years old, I, a young Black girl, met a Holocaust survivor. I’ll never forget what she said to me; as I individually thanked her for spending time sharing her story with the entire student body, she grabbed my hands and looked me in my eyes.
“You remind me of someone. You remind me of a woman on the train I was on after we were liberated. She worked there and held me until my relatives, and I reached our destination. Your smile reminds me of her light; never lose your light, and you will see the world, and the world will see you back.”
So, I did; I never lost my light even as I watched half of my country vote me dead. If I did lose my light, maybe things would be worse. But I don’t want to find that reality, not today.
My parents named me in Arabic what means to “live and prosper”: Aishah. Sometimes it feels like I did when I was six, drained and scared, nowhere close to living life and prospering. But maybe that’s what the life part stands for; suffering and then prosper is the happy part.
I have never been prouder to live and prosper in my brown skin, neurodiverse mind, and female body. The last four years have been an absolute terror for me, interpersonally and globally. The core of who I am has been ashamed and scared, fearing my death by a lynch mob or malicious group of mindless white people who stood back and stood by, waiting for me to walk close enough to kill.
My heart was broken; 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020. I almost lost my light, but I had to go to school, get the grades, work hard, get a job. I had to be mighty this whole time while being terrified this entire time. Have you ever tried sleeping with a broken heart for five years in a row? Have you ever been a fighter without complaining about what it took? I have; I live in my body, the home of the brave. I am not afraid; I am a fighter.
You, Black girl, are a fighter.
You, Black woman, are a fighter.
You are a fighter
But just because you are a fighter doesn’t mean you are strong; it doesn’t mean you are brave. It just means you have the gift to survive to want to see a brighter day! You should be proud; you should be so fucking proud.
This is not written to praise Kamala or Joe for winning, but me. I am the vision of a Black soul’s wildest dreams. I am Aishah, living, and prospering as I breathe. I praise my broken heart; I praise my resilient and sustaining spirit.
This is the Dream we fight for where we don’t ban religion, skin, spirit, people, or love. We are the American Dream.
All the colors of the rainbow to see the vision; clearly, the full picture is developing. We won’t give up. We won’t give in. We will be smarter, work harder, we will shine the world our light, and open our hearts to the world to see. We are not ignorant American pioneers; we are the people of the world, and we will survive.
