On Joe Biden

For there is always light,
if only we’re brave enough to see it
If only we’re brave enough to be it

Today, our 46th president of the United States was inaugurated into the highest office of the land:

Joe Biden.

With him, our first Black and Southeast Asian woman was inaugurated as his- as our- Vice President.

Kamala Harris.

I, of course, hold two feelings in my heart right now.

The first feeling:

I am excited, a little emotional, and feel affirmed in my pursuit of a career in public service. I want to make people’s lives better. And I think we can do that under a Biden-Harris administration.

Having excitement and joy for this day is necessary if only because we need those emotions to sustain us for when we are in thunderstorms. And right now we are in some of the scariest storms yet: a national reckoning on racial justice, a deadly pandemic, an economic crisis, a climate crisis. And those are just the ones that make the headlines.

Today we can have joy. Today we need joy. Tomorrow we work to rebuild. And we do it every day until our children can live in a world with no worry.

As I walked around campus today, it was beautiful to see students, staff, and faculty huddled around t.v screens, laptops, and phones to watch the address. I have always wondered why the office of the President and the President themself, casts such an allure.

Why do people cry, or stand in cold weather to hear them speak, or spill out into the streets when they win victories? I am reminded of Ibram X. Kendi’s piece in The Atlantic: Is this the Beginning of the End of Racism?

“For better or worse, Americans see themselves—and their country—in the president. From the days of George Washington, the president has personified the American body. The motto of the United States is E pluribus unum—“Out of many, one.” The “one” is the president.”

I completely acknowledge that for many on the left, this is not the “one” we wanted.

In one of my group chats, once Bernie Sanders dropped out of the race, I remember ranting: ‘there is no way I’m campaigning for Biden!!! This is awful. He won’t move us forward!!’ Other members of the chat started sharing similar feelings as well.

But then one friend responded: ‘listen, I hear you guys, but for me it’s simple- one president wants to deport my family and the other does not.”

That was a huge paradigm shift for me.

Biden wasn’t the president many of us wanted, but maybe he is what many of us need right now. And maybe people’s lives won’t get better— but they won’t get made worse. At the very least, they’ll get left alone.

To be clear— that is not a world I want to live in. I want to live in a world where we all thrive, where our lives change for the better and we are always moving forward.

But that is not for the President to do alone. It is not up to politicians to do alone either. It is also up to us- teachers, public health workers, community center directors, non-profit leaders, doulas, food providers (at every level of production). All of us.

I am cheering us all on today.

And I start by listening to Amanda Gorman’s breathtaking inaugural poem “The Hill We Climb”.

The second feeling:

Last night before bed, I watched one of my favorite writers, FreeQuency, do a spoken word entitled: "I Don't Want A President (#45Lies)".

I don't want a president at all.

After all, what is a president but a small king.

An emperor whose new clothes I cannot see.

An agreement we made collectively

that we can unmake just as easily.

I pledge no allegiance to America

because white men defiled it with borders

and called the result a country.

I do not confuse dying to vote with dying for freedom

even though they meant the same thing

at one time in history.

I will not beg for a seat at a table

whose legs are bent backs and we dine only on scarcity.

I want us to dare to dream

beyond the dictates of this dystopia.

To say that the ending that so many feared was coming

came long ago and we have simply been living in it's shadow.

I want us to admit more

than this being a failure from the start.

To say America never was great and never can be.

That sometimes,

sometimes the rot is so deep in the root

that a pruning does not breed possibility.

That the only hope for a harvest

lies in the fields being re-sown entirely.

And I wanna know why this isn't possible.

I wanna know why we started learning somewhere down the line

that a president is always needed,

that a country is always needed,

that the police are always needed,

that any of this has ever been and will always be needed.

……………………………………….

See sometimes,

sometimes I daydream I will live to see a day

that a child is born so free that they will hear this poem

and wonder what the hell a president even is.

And I believe that we can do it.

And I accept that we will be ourselves in the doing.

I accept that there will be disagreement,

that we will conflict as we unravel our imposed inhumanity,

as we realize that we have less to learn than to unlearn

as we remember our collective body.

And I wanna know why this isn't possible.

Somewhere, somehow I am in the middle and I am writing my own poems.

I think many worlds are possible, and I don’t have all the answers but I am willing to put in the work to root out our rot and to grow new harvests- and I think we all can do it if we start in our small corners.

But we need hands, and we need hope, and we need light.

And we need you.

Hopefully, here is to a new beginning.