Contradictions between denial, realpolitik and hope: USA, Kamala Harris and the future
Yes, we will applaud Kamala, applaud ourselves and rise again every step of the way, phenomenal women.
This is not a (late) column about the U.S. Capitol storming on January 6th, 2021, but it will end up being a reflection and a thought of possible future — desired or feared –. The episode is a pretext for exposing a shared problem to the stories of racial-cultural formation in the North American country and the Brazilian present: self-image. The white, national-nilistic and heterocisnormative character of the insurrection ignited by Donald J. Trump and Republican parliamentary minions is an open vein and historical underpinning to American liberal democracy and whose few conquests, or promises, of individual-collective freedoms and guarantees are due to struggles and resistance, platform and secular political organization of the Black, Indigenous, Latin, South-Pacific-Asian, and other ethno-racial denominations, female or non-female, around the consolidation and practice of a common and programmatic constitutionalist agenda of Human and Civil rights — and not of the white Founding Fathers’, as The New York Times journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones explains in the lines of 1619 Project –. This already registered imaginary, tenaciously unrecognized, corresponds in truth to the imperfect mirror looked at, denied of whiteness (male and female) around aspirations, desires, and eventual yearnings for a manifest and self-attributed moral vocation to superiority, a intellectual bastion and guide of progress, development, free trade, joy, and prosperity of peoples — domestic and the globe –. Fanon (1925–1961) explains.
From arrogant paranoia, the absence. Or needy excess. Lack of. Negative self positivation of dissident subjectivities to the image, color, body, unique affections misguides distortions, complexities, and other possible experiences about first humanities cited — and the coexisting ones –. The never limping, relentless and ascetic pursued perfection does not admit the opportunity of constant self-knowledge, the oneself work (Foucault, 2004) as a social individual and active instrument of the world’s transformation. The unorganized anger of the frustrations undoubtedly due to so many, multiple, alienating, self-centralized, ignorant, confused, and poorly executed tasks creates penalties of their own — the difficulty of intra and interpersonal relationships — and others’ physical, symbolic and epistemic abuse, violence, domination and extermination.
If the new white homonationalist race-fascism recently observed onslaught in Trump’s U.S. and/or since 2015/6 in the international community also tells about the necessary psychoanalysis in sociological making and elaborating, although they do not psychologize superstructures — and they should not –, denial of the race-gender-class-based system of the Seven Hundreds (18th century), Eight hundred (19th century) or Nine hundred (20th century) built nation-States by moderates and proclaimed defenders of “democratic normality” nowadays concerns more. According to these, the 6th sedition would only say to non-conformists’ authoritarian rapture with an electoral defeat, and not about the white stylized ethos and habitus political being. White law and order lacquered demonstrations of State terror to Black, Indigenous, Latin, Asian, Pacific Islander, and Muslim expressions national — police brutality in Black Lives Matter protests for the assassination of George Floyd and the apathetic, contemplative Capitol security forces observation to the whitewashed storming mob are excellent piece of examples — and internationally then would be part of the democratic exercise. If this intentional and/or unconscious denial persists, any rearrangement, promise of overcoming, restorative/equitable justice or reparation will be doomed to failure and inequality increase. And there are those who are ancestrally and secularly tired of rebuilding themselves and their wreckage over an intermittent reestablishment of possible life amid the material and metaphorical dirtiness of a white deformed democracy.
From chaos, narcissistic wounds and scars still open, however, some encouragement. Contradictorily or not, in the same context. Feeling in the eyes the North American breeze — yes, in all known ambivalences — given by Kamala Harris’ swearing-in as first woman, Black person and of Indian descent to the U.S. Vice Presidency, moreover position/function of a key role considering its double executive and legislative branch, is to relearn to hope with the action and elevation of anti-racism, gender and class-based struggles into power cadres composition, whether in promise — obviously collectable — or intent — her trajectory and reverence for ancestry (the hyperlinked video salutes some of Harris’ walk inspirations and references) itself already give an account of the will to execute it, in spite of racist and anti-racist patriarchy, detractors, and contradictions (and even some admit different interpretations. I invite you to read again that of the articles “Public defender: I worked with Kamala Harris. She was the most progressive DA in California”; “Campaign fact check: Here’s how Kamala Harris really prosecuted marijuana cases” and “Kamala Harris and the noble path of the prosecutor”) –.
Harris’ choice as a companion in the Democratic presidential race, undoubtedly catalyzed between the Black anti police brutality uprisings against George Floyd’s murder articulated via the Black Lives Matter movement nationwide, signals if not real desire the strategic understanding of the historical reconciliation and repair for the brutal asymmetries triggered by violence and racial-slavery inherited abuses as necessary to justice, suppression, and overcoming of white supremacist Civil War (1861–1865) nationalism and/or Jim Crow/Trump’s legacy — to be observed –. This race-gender-age diverse pair now united and raised to the top of country’s power chain under the commitment of reconstruction, observation, and respectful management of socioracial and gender-class differences can/should bring some inspiration and horizon over Brazil to anti oppression resistance struggles by maintaining the Rule of Law advocated by 1988 Constitution, and democratic fulfilment to the social minimized majorities of Brazilian African Diaspora and Indigenous belonging territory.
First, but not the last. From symbolisms and representativeness, the renewed lesson: dream with ambition, lead with conviction — under the spectrum of relevant, agreed on and by respect for differences alliances (Audre Lorde) — and see yourself in a unique way never seen before — because a self-defined, secure and confident one –. Or shown. Yes, we will applaud Kamala, applaud ourselves and rise again every step of the way, phenomenal women and people we are.
