DEAR BLACK PEOPLE

Dear Black people:

I love you all, I really do, but right now some of you are getting on my last good nerve. Instead of celebrating a historic moment — a moment when a brilliant black woman has the opportunity to bring our collective pain to the seat of power, some of you all are grumbling about stuff that is so tired and self-defeating.

In the past 24 hours I have heard and read caustic comments about Kamala Harris from Black folks, as if the racist tropes coming from the White House aren’t enough. I knew she was going to be in for a fight. I knew the haters would come out in force. I am just saddened so many of them are my own people. Name calling and colorism, really?

It’s a damn shame we can’t celebrate this daughter of Oakland, HBCU grad, member of one of the oldest black sororities and fierce Attorney General and campaigner. Of course, you are entitled to your opinions, but don’t hold this Black woman or any other black person to a standard Jesus couldn’t meet.

Joe Biden’s choice wrote Black women into the history books at a pivotal moment in our country. I am beyond thrilled and motivated to turn up and turn out the vote. Contrary to the current White House inhabitant’s insulting question: “What have you got to lose?” We have a hell of a lot at stake here. We have already lost big time during the past four years and we will continue to get robbed if we take our eyes off the prize,

If you want to sit around and lament that Joe Biden didn’t choose your candidate and parse someone else’s blackness, you go right ahead. You aren’t going to stop the rest of us from doing everything we can to take the White House back and turn it half Black. As Joe Biden puts it, this election is about the soul of our country. As a soulful people let’s get in formation and show this administration that cares nothing about us, that we give a damn about ourselves.