Sickness in America

What is the cure

The good brother John D. Marshall D. Ed. wrote recently on his substack about the bad apples and how this election highlighted the mere 4 out of 10 who chose goodness over hatred—the good apples. Well Dr. Marshall, my granny also made us keep the bad apples from the tree in her backyard—”them are cooking apples” she would tell me. Showing that even the most damaged or busted apples also had a purpose. As the tree got older, and through no fault of hers, more and more of the apples were just cooking apples. The tree, it seemed, was sick. The older it got the less it produced good and sweet apples. And that is where I was Wednesday morning as I checked the results of the election— devastated and realizing just how sick the tree (America) really is that more rotten apples are growing and prospering—while the good apples are few and far between.

I went into this election with higher hopes than I care to admit. Vice President Harris ran the best campaign I have seen in my lifetime aside from the Obama 08 HOPE campaign. She was inspiring. She was uplifting. She aimed to speak to ALL of us and not just a select few—even though the racist electoral college system often tempts candidates to speak ONLY to those 7 states.

Kamala Harris was incredible. Was she perfect? No. She fumbled on Gaza, she embraced centrist ideologies of the Cheneys and wanted to make the tent so big that maybe some of those who were inside felt pushed out. Did the tent get too crowded? Kinda feels like it.

But overall, the campaign was special. In the span of time she had, she inspired us regular people and celebrities alike and the campaign stops were pure joy.

The vibe in Atlanta—oh my God. And that gets m to one thought I had when I saw 15,000 people swag surf— Is this going to anger the white people?

Well—-

Yeah— they mad.

Something I have learned all too well is a lot of them hate to see even a perception that Black people are doing better than them. Having more fun. Making more money. Getting those good Black jobs. Look— a little over a year ago I had one of my highest of highs in my personal achievement. That day felt incredible and validating, that week leading up to it was so great I texted people in my life thanking them for their contributions to me getting there. The high was Wednesday. That Friday things took a turn and it was fueled by some haters who didn’t like seeing me ‘succeed.’ Who cares about all I had to overcome to get to where I went— who cares that it was 4X harder for me because of the state of the world? All they saw was me, doing something in their minds I had no business doing—not failing.

Vice President Harris did so much more and so much more was asked of her than her opponent, but that didn’t matter. That is how it goes for Black people and especially Black women. We can work much harder and still lose and are asked to be happy with the scraps. I am positive a lot of those people, especially white men and in a close second, white women, saw that and felt their view of the world order challenged. How dare they think they get THIS right now. White men who rarely ever voted (the low propensity voters) and white women who did not have a college degree came out in droves unseen before to vote AGAINST that Black lady and for the orange guy.

When broken down for education level—whew boy. And that is part of the issue of the bad apples. A lot of those apples who didn’t want to put in the work, still are spiteful of those who did and seemingly are doing better than them.

My second thought was about the ad that sparked the ire of conservative “men” like Charlie Kirk and Tucker and the other finance bro looking dudes. You know the one where the women go to the ballot box and give a knowing look at each other to apparently vote for Harris because it is a secret their masters husbands can’t know.

I understood the purpose of this ad but I also think it backfired. Not because of the outrage but because it was a reminder…hey votes are secret.

When Daniel Cameron was running for governor of KY against Andy Beshear I had a ton of confidence that Andy would win. Not just because Andy is a great guy, because he is, but because I also grew up in the real world and understood where people would go. Daniel, for those who don’t know him from his terrible mishandling of the murder of Breonna Taylor, was the Black republican AG of KY. In thinking about the election then, I knew that in the private voting booth, a lot of white people were going to pick the white guy over the Black guy even if they seemed to support him via the party.

This ad made me immediately think—oh no!— they can do it too. I have zero doubt that some of the white women you know who openly said they were voting for Harris absolutely did not vote for Harris. I mean— the math says some of them lied or the math is wrong. I’m banking on fibbers.

This election was hard, mentally. Even though I knew the country was embracing this racist shift to the right, I thought maybe sense would prevail. I was stupidly naive on this one.

And this embracing and emboldening of racism is terrifying for us. I feel like the country just openly affirmed that they don’t think our lives matter—at all. And don’t take my word for it, look at the texts going out to Black people across AmeriKKKa :

The racists are loving this country right now.

On a personal/vulnerable note— I am scared. I am. Driving back from Chicago stopping at charging stations for my car (an EV) I thought about the terrorism being committed on us in the country. For those who aren’t familiar with EV travel, you have to find random stops to charge and you sit there—often in the middle of nothing— connected to a machine for 15-45 minutes. In other words—defenseless and stuck. I am fearful of driving my car to say…visit my mom because that requires two charge stops going through rural KY. I am currently trying to find ways to get money to buy a cheap old 2nd car (since I can’t sell mine thanks to the idiot owner of the company) to take for any drive over an hour. (My venmo is @Tsullivan5 btw and seriously) I don’t take that lightly. It sucks because that is where we are.

This country right now is so sick and 6 out of 10 people don’t want to be cured. Just like the old days when we weren’t allowed to go see doctors and weren’t allowed to be doctors—we had to take things on and figure out how to at least try to take care of ourselves and each other. I still hope for a better future, but I also thought we were a little better than we are. So what do I know?

For more check out Ricky L. Jones and Are You Not Entertained.