I woke up on Wednesday morning to the predictable expressions of shock and dismay on my social media feed. 'Wow America' 'America is this really who you are?' 'I’m shocked and disgusted' – a man who has admitted to wanting to grab women by the p*ssy, a man who for the overturning of (which restricts or bans ), a man who engages in open expressions of racism and homophobia, a man who is a convicted felon – is president of the United States of America, again. It would be parody if it wasn’t so tragic.
The shock and dismay agitate me. It communicates to me that too many people are not paying attention, are ill prepared and continue to underestimate the powerful forces of patriarchy and white supremacy. As a Black woman with lineage lost to slavery, I am not the least bit surprised by these election results.
The US, a former British colony, is a country founded on male supremacism, extraordinary violence, racism and legalised rape which was maintained for centuries, far longer than it has not been in place. That kind of legacy doesn’t just disappear with a new politician and set of policies. The same political systems many expect to save us have only ever existed to maintain dominance and subordination.
As a British colony in the early 17th century, the white British elite embedded slave codes in Virginia. These English common laws extended to nearly all of its American colonies, including the Caribbean, and controlled the treatment of enslaved Africans which consequent.