Since Donald Trump’s inauguration over a year ago, many progressive people like me have reported feeling angry, anxious, appalled, sleepless, numb, shaken, weary and frightened.
But I have come to understand that one word most succinctly captures my current state of mind: disoriented. I am functioning, but I feel disoriented all the time — like there is a reality that is familiar to me, and yet I am walking around in some parallel time and space that is unreal, unbelievable and unnerving. I feel disoriented, constantly.
To counter these feelings of disorientation, I have been leaning on four pillars in my life: family, church, community and readings that can steady me. Time with family, plus the renewal of an inspiring worship service each week, plus the feeling of being held by this community, have all been salve to my nerves, which have taken such a beating since last January.
In addition, I find that books and articles by prophetic theologians and radical thinkers have helped me remember that the pronouncements spewing forth from the White House and the behaviors of our thoroughly misguided president are not the reality I choose to acknowledge.
I am finding it calming and inspiring to read brilliant, progressive writers who tell the truth, write beautifully, and offer an analysis of the current state of this country that is clear, honest and accurate.
The most recent treasure of a book that I read to help steady me and decrease my feelings of disorientation was “We Were Eight Years in Power,” by Ta-Nehisi Coates. Having loved his book “Between the World and Me,” I grabbed “We Were Eight Years In Power,” knowing it would help me understand issues of race and class even though the background noise surrounding both these issues is growing ever more shrill, polarized and painful each day.
If anyone else is feeing disoriented and longs to reflect on the current state of race in America, reach for this book.
Coates discusses how “…the fact of Barack Obama, of Michelle Obama, changed our lives.” And the “our” refers principally to the lives of African-American men and women in this country.
With eloquence and numerous examples, Coates explains how he did not change when Obama was elected but watched as the world changed around him. “It was as if I had spent my years jiggling a key into the wrong lock. The lock changed. The doors swung open. …”
It was helpful for me to remember that we felt hopeful in the fall of 2008. It was inspiring to hold Coates’ words in my heart when he reflected on the feeling in the African-American community in 2008: “… for the first time in our lives, (we were) proud of our country. Everything was bright. Everything was rising. Everything was a dream.”
We may not feel that euphoric again for a long, long time. But his words have helped me commit to working on the mid-term elections with focus, vigor and hope.
Coates is fierce in his analysis of white supremacy — its roots, its manifestations and its insidious presence in contemporary society. Weaving together examples from Malcolm X’s speeches, hip-hop music, the criminal “injustice” system, and how the Civil War is taught in schools, Coates analyzes how white people have simultaneously co-opted black culture and marginalized black people. How I wish Mr. Trump would read those chapters.
The entire middle section of the book is devoted to one topic: the case for reparations for the crime of slavery. This should be required reading in all high schools and colleges in America. If only the radical right could read and understand the ongoing, corrosive, soul-destroying nature of racism and the need for reparations, our country could begin to heal from the original sin upon which this nation was built.
My advice is to buy the book for this section alone and memorize some key points, facts and figures. Spelled out in one long chapter is a full analysis of the cumulative effect of racism on the lives of African-Americans in terms of social, political, and economic power and advancement. It is powerful reading, staggering stories and truth-telling at its bravest and finest.
Why did I find this book so meaningful and important? Almost every page had some insight, narrative, example or analysis about race and class in America that was news to me and profoundly meaningful.
But it also helped me understand the current state of our nation and “the first white President,” as Coates calls Donald Trump. “To Trump whiteness is neither notional nor symbolic,” Coates writes, “but is the very core of his power.”
Detailing how white supremacy is the very reason Trump was elected and how it undergirds Trump’s outlook on the world and influences all his decisions, Coates helps the reader identify what we must to do continually name this reality and combat it. “The scope of Trump’s commitment to whiteness is matched only by the depth of popular intellectual disbelief in it,” he writes.
Coates urges progressive activists to organize, endlessly, to dismantle racism, to support the Black Lives Matter movement, to uplift the leadership of people of color and to name white privilege in all its ugly and relentless manifestations — over and over and over and over again.
As I stumble around feeling disoriented, I am dedicated to finding ways to center myself in what is true and real, and counter the distortions, denials, and lies that assault us daily. I am grateful that scholar-activists like Ta-Nehisi Coates offer us a way to understand the past and a road map for the journey ahead.
With prophetic voices like his, plus family, church and this supportive community, I may endure the next three years without losing my balance completely. For that I am grateful.
The Rev. Dr. Andrea Ayvazian, of Northampton, is part of the ministerial team of the Alden Baptist Church in Springfield. She is the founder and director of the Sojourner Truth School for Social Change Leadership, which offers free movement-building classes from Greenfield to Springfield. She writes a monthly column on the intersection of faith, culture, and politics, and can be reached at opinion@gazettenet.com.