Black and Blue: Post-Election Reflections

Black and Blue: Reflections on the 2024 General Election.

[00:00:00] If empathy is the oxygen of democracy. Then the United States is currently hypoxic. I've got some explaining to do. Let's get into it. Hey, everyone. Welcome back for another episode of Ayana Explains It All, the podcast bridging the gap between current events and human behavior. I am your podcast host, Ayana Fakhir.

I am your podcast host, Ayana Fakhir, the black Muslim lady lawyer who has an opinion on everything. And I do mean everything. This show covers some of everything. We talk about politics, talk about race, [00:01:00] history, economics, talk about technology, the environment. I talk about parenting because I am a parent.

I'm a single mama of two kids. One is 20 years old and the other is 16 going on. I don't know. She's about 35 at this point. But I am coming to you recorded from Northeast Ohio. Yes. That red state that sometimes is a blue state, but it hasn't been a blue state in quite some time that rejected a proposal to end gerrymandering where they do that at in Ohio.

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We're going to have some post election reflections, since the election upended us and ruined our lives, essentially, no, it didn't ruin our lives. We're gonna be fine. We're gonna bounce back, okay? We're not gonna let that be what ends [00:03:00] us.

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so the presidential election 2024 is in the books. Boy, was it a wild one? I cannot say that I am not relieved. I am absolutely relieved that it is over, even though it did not go in the direction that I wanted it to in the direction that I felt that in the direction that I feel it should have gone and what was best for the entire country, not just for me, which I think is sometimes [00:04:00] how people tend to vote.

They tend to vote their identity, but they also vote for themselves. And I am not one of those people. I'm a black Muslim woman. And obviously you would think, Oh, she's probably voted for the black lady because she's black now. No, absolutely not. I did vote for Harris. I did vote for VP Harris and Tim Walz and it's not because she's black and I'm black.

I have multiple reasons. One of the biggest reasons is because, and I have talked about this before on the podcast, I work in public service. And I don't want to work for someone who is incompetent. And that's what we got the last time a certain person was in office between 2017 and January 2021. Okay. A lot of incompetence, a lot of what are we doing? We don't know what we're doing. A lot of fumbling, a lot of juggling balls, [00:05:00] a lot of monkeys riding tricycles.

A lot of elephants doing somersaults, it was a circus is what I'm trying to say. And you want someone in charge of this very important body who is competent, who is smart, who is respected by everyone, who is not trying to ruin the lives of the people who work for them. for them who was not trying, who was not threatening to end the careers and in the jobs of the people who work for him because for some reason he doesn't like them.

 He doesn't see a need for a civil service. Although civil servants are the reason why. Any fucking thing gets done in the government at any level, right?

You walk into your city's city hall and there's no one working there. How do you get anything done? How do you get business done? How do you get how do you get permits? How do you find someone who's going to answer questions about why your leaves haven't been picked up [00:06:00] or why your trash collection hasn't been collected in a couple of weeks.

You have a, you have you have mayors. These are elected positions, but these people have people working for them. Because they can't be everywhere. These people have people answering questions, and processing applications, and taking phone calls and etc, and doing cases. They're in courtrooms.

They're, doing surveys and they're investigating things and they're part of FEMA and they're part of the EPA. The problem is that when you don't like the answers that you're being given from a particular person or agency, you think I'll just eliminate them and I won't have to worry about having to ask them anything because they won't exist anymore.

And that's a really juvenile thing. childish way of looking at the world. It's not for adults. It's how wealthy people act though. How very wealthy people, very powerful people act. They will [00:07:00] dispense with whatever disagrees with them and whoever disagrees with them. It's stupid and dumb and obviously not worth talking to or worth existing.

 The fact that we're all now at the mercy of this person who does not like us, who doesn't even really know us, who knows nothing about us, our day to day lives and the services that we provide is scary.

And a lot of us are scared, a lot of us who are black and women and of various faiths, who are in interracial marriages, who are members of the LGBTQ community, who are immigrants, whether you are here with papers or without, who are dreamers, who are part of the middle class, who are lower income, who are, young and they want to be able to inherit.

They want to inherit from the Gen Xers and the Baby Boomers, a government that will support them. A government that [00:08:00] will be strong and robust into their older years. And that won't be weak and that won't be seen as weak on the world stage. But I tell you what, on the world stage, Because the United States has declared itself to be the leader of the free world, and everyone else just fell in line after World War II, because they were all in tatters and really they needed somebody to lead.

When you establish that dominance, You can't then go, Oh, you know what? I'm sick of all of you. I want all of you to go away. All of these things that we've been doing, all of these treaties and all of these alliances that we've formed. Yeah, we don't need that anymore. We're the most powerful nation on earth and we don't need anybody.

You're really setting yourself up for a a scary situation. You're setting yourself up for the oops upside your head, really. You're leaving yourself [00:09:00] unprotected because you think you got it all figured out. You think you don't need anyone.

 You can't call yourself the greatest nation on earth, the leader of the free world, and then not fucking participate in any of the things that the world has going on and then not show up for your people. If you're the leader, then that means all of these other things are under you, right?

How are you suddenly going to not show up for the people you represent?

What do we call ourselves now? That we have done basically what all of the other awful world powers have done. When they elect someone who has made a mockery of law, has made a mockery of religion.

Has made a mockery of society, mocked the disabled, who has mocked women, who has shown no [00:10:00] grace, who is lacking in complete tact. We don't look any better than these countries that we fought against in World War II and World War I and in Vietnam and we don't look any better than what we were fighting for in Korea We don't look any better than these places We were going into in Central America and trying to keep certain factions from taking over like communism and socialism We don't look any better than these places anytime a democracy, is looking to curtail the rights and privileges of the people, then it renders itself no longer a democracy. You cannot call the United States a constitutional democracy when civil rights are curtailed, when personal freedoms are curtailed, when people don't have the right to marry whom they want, to love whom they want, to live how they want, to live where they want, when [00:11:00] they don't have autonomy over their bodies.

That is not a constitutional democracy. It isn't. That is not a powerful nation. That is not the leader of the free world. The leader of the free world sets an example. You know why the United States got to continue to call itself the leader of the free world after World War II? Even though there were countries that were fully formed and were doing fine, like Russia.

It is because we ended segregation. We couldn't be the leader of the free world and still have racial segregation. So we ended segregation in transportation, in housing, in schools, so that we could look good to these nations. And now here it is, we're rolling these things back. I'm not saying that we're going back to racial segregation, certainly not.

I think a lot of people would step up to prevent that from happening. But It feels like that. [00:12:00] And that is the fear that a lot of people have, that we're moving towards a time that we've already abandoned, that we've already evolved from, that we've already moved on from. By saying that the Constitution doesn't protect any of these rights, and that it should be left up to the states, that's 50 different states deciding the rights of all Americans.

Because you don't just stay in your own little state, right? You travel. That's the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. You have the right to travel. You go to other states, and you want what was in your state to be respected in another state.

 If a person can, if a white person and a black person can be married in the state of Oregon, then when they travel to the state of Tennessee, their marriage should also be recognized in the state of Tennessee.

It shouldn't be that one state gets to have rules for, gets to have a rule against interracial marriage, and another state has a rule that supports it. That's ridiculous. These [00:13:00] shouldn't even be con These shouldn't even be conversations, right? This should not even be called a con This shouldn't even be a conversation, right?

Why is this a thing?

Here we are. Here we are, post 2024 election, and everyone has a lot of big feelings about this. really big feelings and they're expressing it all over social media. And I don't necessarily agree with a lot of what is being said by Muslims and about what is being said and, or what's being said by black people.

I, I, Black Harris supporters, particularly, I don't agree with everything everybody is saying. What I do agree with is that everyone has a right to feel what they feel. I don't tell anybody how to hurt. I don't tell anybody the right way to mourn. I don't tell anyone how to protest. I don't tell anybody how to feel because [00:14:00] you don't know where people are coming from.

Each individual person is coming from and why certain things like this election, like having a certain candidate as president means so much to them. And. When you suffer a huge loss like this after getting your hope built up so high, like I had my hope so high because I want to see this nation progress and move on from this ridiculous idea that we'll be great again.

And if you ask a Trump supporter what that means again, they can't tell you. It's either that this nation has always been great, or they should be able to point to a time when it was so great and so wonderful that everyone was happy. That everyone was happy. And I know that time has never existed. This is a capitalist society.

There's no equality. Equality would make everyone [00:15:00] happy. Income equality, social equality, class equality. We don't have that. We do not have that. It's a capitalist society. There's no way you're going to have that anyway. But Either we're, we've always been great, that's why we have millions of people a year showing up here to visit and to immigrate.

Immigrate with an E, but also immigrate with an I. There's a difference, yes! And there's a reason why people are showing up here. Either we've always been great or there was a particular time when we were great and you want to get back to it But you can't tell me what that time was because each if we look at each presidential term of all the presidents we've had since say I don't know.

I would say FDR. All of these times have been marked by something catastrophic something terrible [00:16:00] some event or some, just something that we had to endure, right? FDR had World War II. Eisenhower had World War II. And the creation of Israel was huge. JFK, they all had racial segregation and desegregation.

JFK obviously had the worst of it because he was assassinated and Johnson had Vietnam. Nixon had Vietnam, and Ford had, the plane hijackings.

He also had issues with Israel and whether we should give money to Israel. Nixon was very much against it until he was for it because Congress forced him to be for it. Congress and the American people forced him to open that pipeline of money. to Israel and give arms and money to Israel. That's when it really started [00:17:00] under Nixon and Carter was a peacemaker.

Carter didn't want to keep giving, but he wanted to broker peace between Palestine and Israel. He tried his darndest. Of course, then Reagan comes in and he's given even more. But there was a recession under Reagan. Reagan was also a bit of a mental case, but we don't get into that. But he had the Space Shuttle Challenger tragedy, right?

And then Bush had the, I'm not going to raise taxes, but raise taxes anyway. So he lost the election when he went for re election. He lost to Bill Clinton. Now Bill Clinton had a bunch of different things going on. Bunch of different things. But he was the only president who was able to balance the budget.

He had us in the black. He did really well, but he had, he had the problems in Haiti, he had the problems in. Somalia. He had, the Bosnian [00:18:00] war and then W Bush came in and he obviously had nine 11 in Iraq, in Afghanistan. And then that leads to another recession and Obama comes in and he's gotta pull us out of that recession.

And he did. He did a bunch of different things and it eventually worked. He became the king of austerity and it worked. And we had a good economy by the time he left office. And then here comes Trump throwing, ketchup at the wall and noodles at the wall to see what sticks and he had the pandemic, he had the COVID pandemic in 2020 and then he had January 6th and then he had all of his other legal struggles and we got Biden and Biden's having to pull us out of yet another economic downturn because we are still in a pandemic that affected the entire world, [00:19:00] that obliterated the economies of some nations, but that also put us into a bit of a depression.

And we saw inflation with prices rising and we saw price gouging that we're still seeing. by retailers and manufacturers and people blamed him for it. It wasn't his fault. I know you hate him. Some of you, I know you hate him, but it's not his fault. It isn't. We have a habit in the United States of not blaming the people who are really responsible for the things that are happening.

We place blame, we misplace blame and that leads us to making mistakes and electing certain people because these people will run on fixing what's going on. What the other guy broke, allegedly, and it wasn't them who broke it. So what are they trying to fix?

[00:20:00] But it's also the case that it's also the case that when it comes to, this is how I see it. When it comes to Republican voters, they want to feel good. People who voted for Trump wanted to feel good right now. They see that a lot more money is being taken out of their. weekly budget for groceries and they hate that.

I get it. But that's not the president's fault. And because it's not the president's fault, he also can't fix it. He also cannot fix it. It's price gouging. Now we could, have a a law that's anti price gouging, but maybe that should be left up to the States, but whatever you're thinking he's going to do, It's not going to be of benefit to most Americans because, again, you're electing someone who doesn't care about most [00:21:00] Americans. He's never shown that he cares about most Americans. He doesn't have a record of caring about most Americans. He isn't going to suddenly start caring about most Americans.

And I see all of these social media videos of people celebrating his win because they think, Oh, he's going to give us money. He's going to put more money in our pockets. And we're not going to be taxed on overtime. No, but your overtime will be taken away. And he's going to give us 30, 000 each. What? Huh?

And oh, I'll be able to buy a house now. Huh? Oh, you think the housing prices are going down? No, they're not. They're not going down. They're not unless there are too many houses and not enough people to buy them. But the price that things are now is the price. The only thing that might go down are interest rates.

The APR, that's the only thing that might decrease. We [00:22:00] saw a little bit of that this year that the fed lowered the interest rate. I think it was by half a point. You might see interest rates go down, but the price we're paying now for things is the price. And it's just going to go up. It's not going to go down.

It's not going to decrease. If you see more money in your bank account, it's because you got another job and you're working more hours at your second job. I'm not kidding. I'm not kidding. My taxes went up thanks to the 2017 tax act. My taxes went up. My take home pay went down. I'm a middle class.

Apparently I am a working class American based on how I am paid. I am a working class American. My taxes went up and my take home pay went down. And of course, The cost of health insurance went up, so I, I did not have the wages to cover the increase. So [00:23:00] that meant less money going into my bank account, less money that I could save, less money that I could spend to take care of my children.

It's been tight for a while. You know who made up for that? President Biden. I know you don't want to believe me because, oh, he's terrible. He can't form a sentence. He's old. Bye. He actually did. Now I'm one of those people who, when somebody does something right, I acknowledge it. I acknowledge it. There's nothing wrong with that.

A lot of things he did right, a lot of shit he did wrong. But he did a lot of things right that decreased childhood poverty, that stabilized the economy after a pandemic. You know how hard that is? Of course you don't know. Of course you don't. Why would you? If you did, you would be showing some empathy.

Right now. And all you could think about is, Oh, meh, it costs [00:24:00] ten, ten thousand dollars for a twenty four pack of deer park water.

But of course, now that the Grand Wizard has been returned to the land of Oz, he's gonna fix everything and everything's gonna be okay. I tell you, people really just wanted to feel good. They wanted to feel better. That's it. It doesn't matter if any of these promises are ever going to come through.

They just want it to feel good. I have never wanted to feel good so much that I literally put my own head in the guillotine and drop the blade on it. I have never wanted to feel so good that I frickin cut off my own nose to spite my face. I have never wanted to feel so good that I look at my neighbors and my community and go You'll be all right.

And vote for the one thing that's going to separate their families. That's going to hurt their wages. [00:25:00] That's going to hurt manufacturing. That's going to hurt their communities. That's going to take money out of their cities. That's going to make their taxes go up. I have never wanted to feel good so much that I hurt other people.

What do they call that? Masochism? Sadism? Help auntie out. I'm gonna Google it, don't worry. Ha ha ha ha ha. Ah,

sadism. See, here at Ayana explains it all. Ha ha ha ha ha. Ayana can explain everything, but Ayana don't know everything.

The Grand Wizard has been returned to Oz. It's not the Grand Wizard. It's the Wizard of Oz. Why do I keep saying Grand Wizard? What is wrong with me? Today we find ourselves at a crossroads in the United States. The 2024 election has [00:26:00] come and gone and despite her hard fought campaign and the tremendous dedication shown by her supporters, Vice President Kamala Harris did not prevail.

And in this moment, while it's difficult for those who believed in her vision, it holds immense significance for the future of the United States. And as we reflect on this election, we must understand the changing tides within our country. We're going back. I'm not going back. I'm going to keep going forward. Even if she didn't win, I'm taking her message of going forward. And I'm going to do just that. I refuse to go back to a time where people were afraid to speak their minds, where people were afraid to be somewhere because they were black, where people were afraid to be married because of the person they were marrying, [00:27:00] where people were afraid to talk about.

certain subjects where women had to go to certain places and certain doctors, certain underground places to obtain an abortion because abortion was illegal. I'm not going back to those times. We should not have to go back in order to be a better nation. The history of this nation is incremental changes.

Changes for the better. Things have been changing for the better, but because someone doesn't like gays and trans people and want to feel good about the price of a fucking pack of cookies, now we're going to be set back again.

And Vice President Harris's campaign embodied a commitment to unity, justice, and progress, and a vision for a more inclusive United States. But her loss highlights that while our country has made strides toward greater diversity and representation, the path ahead for us remains challenging and complex.[00:28:00]

This moment is a reminder that democracy is not always a straight line. Each election is a pulse check on the nation's values and concerns. And right now, those concerns are varied and deeply felt. Many Americans are grappling with economic uncertainty, political polarization, and a desire for stability.

And some chose a path they believe offers a clearer, if not simpler, vision forward. Only what they don't know is that this is going to be a setback. You don't know it because you weren't paying attention. Even though we were warned several times by the people in power that this was going to be a setback for us.

Because we wanted to feel good, because we wanted to be dancing like in The Wiz where the people come out of their costumes and can you feel a brand new day? We wanted to feel a brand new day. [00:29:00] We voted, many of us voted against our self interests for a temporary fix.

And if you are feeling like you want to separate yourself from the people who did this, I don't blame you. Protect your peace.

You don't have to honor anything that betrays you. You do not have to align yourself with anything or anyone who betrays you.

Kamala Harris's defeat does not erase the values she championed.

It calls on us to recommit to them. This election should fuel a broader movement to address inequities, confront systemic issues, and support policies that genuinely uplift all Americans, whether it's by advancing health care, education, environmental stewardship, or [00:30:00] economic reform. The work she and other Democrats have done has inspired millions, and it's now up to us to carry that torch forward.

If you have a fear, like I have a fear that millions of Americans will lose their health care. And how that will impact the economy. Say that. Say that. And say it to the right people. Say it to your lawmakers. Do not assume that these people are going to go to Washington and protect your rights just because they said they would.

Do not assume they're going to go to Washington and protect your Social Security and your Medicaid and your food stamps just because they said they would and they know how much it would hurt you to lose those things. I'm telling you, these people do not care. They don't care. They have to be made to care.

They have to see the impact of their decisions. You will see the impact of your decision, of your vote. [00:31:00] Our country's future will depend on those who are willing to see the impact. and correct themselves. Otherwise, we will continue to live with these setbacks. We will continue to lead to live in fear of losing those things that provide the health and safety and security that we value as American citizens.

Today, more than ever, we must ensure that the values of democracy, equality, and justice are That the values of democracy, that equality, justice, and opportunity for all are not only ideals, but realities we are striving toward. Election after election, this election 2024, this moment is not the end, but the beginning of the [00:32:00] next chapter of work, resilience and hope for the United States.

And I know that at this particular moment, there are black women, millions of black women who are saying, this is my time to rest. I am tired. I am tired of fighting. I am tired of fighting for people who do not fight for me. I am tired of being. begging for the rights of people who would not even vote so that I would have my rights guaranteed.

And I don't blame you. I don't blame you. I too am tired. But I still have hope. Why? Because I trust God. I trust God. And I know he would not burden us beyond what we can bear. And I know that he would not want to see us in peril and hardship, but I also know that struggle is necessary.

Struggle is guaranteed. None of us will be without struggle. And I have struggled at many points in my life, but I have also seen relief at many points. But I continue to [00:33:00] work. I continue to work when the struggle is over and I'm receiving my relief. I continue to work in good times. When those good times come, I am thankful.

I am grateful. But I am also mindful that there will be hard times again. There will always be hard times.

And yes, protect your peace. And yes, rest for a bit. But something is going to happen where we're going to need each other. We're going to need to band together. We're going to need to help each other. And perhaps by then we will forget the hurt that we are feeling now, or maybe we won't. But I know that.

In the midst of my hardships, in the midst of my suffering, that I did not suffer alone. I had people. I had help. I had allies. I had sisters. I had friends. I had people to call on. I had people to talk to. I had people to lean on. And [00:34:00] at the end of the day, that's all we want. We want that. We want that support.

I am urging black women not to give up on the rest of the world. There are good things left in this world for us to fight for us to achieve, for us to have for ourselves.

In my religion, we have a saying, No one of you truly believes until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself. That is, none of you truly believes in God until you want for your brothers and sisters what you want for yourself.

 Do as to others what you would want to yourself, love others as you would want to be loved. We are not in competition with each other. We are not in competition with each other. We want our brothers and sisters to [00:35:00] exceed us.

We want them to have better than us. We want our children to have better than us. We want the world that we live in now to be surpassed by the world in 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years. We want the world to be better. We don't want this to be it. We don't want this to be the best. We want it to be better. How do we get to be better by wanting for our brothers and sisters what we want for ourselves.

Think of what you like others to do for you and do it for yourself. Think of what you like people to do for you and do it for them.

If you want something good or beneficial for yourself, then you should also want the same thing for others.

We have to show the same level of care and concern for our fellow human beings as we do for [00:36:00] ourselves. We cannot withhold our care and concern. We cannot withhold our work. We cannot withhold our compassion and empathy simply because we are hurting Or because we do not feel like the other person is worthy of it.

For whatever reason, we cannot withhold our empathy and compassion because we are hurting. If you need to take a break. If you need to mull it over. If you need to come to a better understanding of why things happen the way that they did, because everything happens for a reason. In a couple of months, we're all going to be in the same boat where we're battling with the effects of tariffs and higher taxes and these prices not coming down.

We're all going to be dealing with that. Are we going to stick together to fight it or are we going to be fractured and ignore it? [00:37:00] because maybe you have the money to pay for it. So it's not your problem. If someone else doesn't, that is not the spirit I want to live with. That is not what I want on my record.

Am I hurt? Yes, absolutely. 100%. Do I feel betrayed by a lot of people? Absolutely. Am I dismayed by amount by the amount of anti blackness coming from certain groups? You better fucking believe it. And I am not going to align myself with people who betray me. But I'm also not going to be cold to the world.

I'm not going to be cold and kind and cruel. I'm not going to be cold and unkind and cruel and indifferent to the world. Because some people believe that my life is not worth anything to them. Because I am a black Muslim [00:38:00] woman. I am not going to allow myself to become cruel and cold to the world.

Because some people believe that. voted against my interest so that they could feel good for a little while.

We all get what's coming to us, don't we? I am patient.

And this has been Ayana Explains It All brought to you by Facts, Figures, and Enlightenment. Take care. [00:39:00]