By Elise Ambrose, President of Elite Personnel

I feel sort of stupid these days – these years, actually.  I thought, as only a white person could possibly think, that we had done such a good job of integrating our society.  Of course, I knew there were issues (I’m not actually stupid) but I honestly thought we had gotten so much further than we apparently have.

I figured we had gotten so much further because there was now a substantial black upper class, a significant black middle class, doctors, lawyers, integrated police forces (at least in the civilized states), and a black president, for god’s sake!  What more proof did I need?

Well, apparently a lot.  I am ashamed to say that I thought that fight had been won (again, in the civilized states, I can’t account for the others).  How wrong I was.  The advent of cell phone cameras has laid bare the disgraceful, hurtful, arrogant, brutish, nasty behavior of cops everywhere.  I am appalled.  And deeply saddened by the deaths of so many vibrant lives and for what?  A $20 check?  Snooping in an under-construction house?  Being in the wrong place at the wrong time?  Or just being black?

I am furious.  America is better than this.  America should be better than this.  America had damned well get better than this in a hurry

I despise Trump with every fiber of my being but I am coming to believe that he was put here to show us our inequities, our shameful disregard for what was/is being done to our own neighbors, our arrogance.  We had a lot to be arrogant about.  We have been a shining light on the hill for generations of people to come and make their way in the world.  But then, we allowed corporate greed to hollow out our towns, place the blame on “others”, take us back to the days before unions and employee rights and just plain doing the right thing, damn it.  This fueled a divide between blacks and whites, between native born and immigrants, between men and women and became a competition for jobs and security and a way to make good lives for ourselves.

I am sick of it.  I am disgusted by it.  We weren’t paying attention – too many of us weren’t paying attention.  We allowed this to happen on our watch.  And we should be ashamed of ourselves.

We have no choice now but to acknowledge our failures and to fix the system we broke.  And break it we did.  We ended up with Donald Trump.  God help us all.

The next few months are going to be a test of us all.  Are we going to do what it takes to get our country back on track?  Are we going to listen to our black neighbors and friends and people we don’t know at all as they try to explain to us just what they have felt for all of these years (generations)?  Are going to allow Donald Trump to win and be proud to subjugate people of color for another four years?  NO, we are NOT.

It’s 2020.  We’ve been looking forward to #November2020 every single day since November 9, 2016.  Every single day.  Every single hour.  Practically every single minute.

There is NO sitting this one out.  There is NO, I don’t have time to canvass or write or call for the Biden campaign (and/or many other really worthwhile campaigns).  There is no excuse not to donate every damned dime you possibly can to the Biden campaign and the DSCC, DCCC and, yes, the DNC.  We need the White House, we need the SENATE and we need to keep the House.  And then, by god, if we don’t address the systemic widespread racism and bias against any and all groups of humans, and start the process of fundamental change, I will personally go sit on the steps of the Capitol with a sign, every single day, until I die.  I’ll be one of those “crazy” people who spend their lives protesting injustice.  An injustice anywhere is an injustice everywhere.  That’s it.