Donald Trump became president. Freedom is still ours to fight for.

I don’t say this to say that all white people are bad. Whiteness is a symbol in this country. This means that Donald Trump is president for one reason: he is a white man with an amoral compass toward supremacy. He won four years ago because he is a white man who promised to restore white power. And he can win again.

So no. Joe Biden never intended to win by a landslide in a country that is neither brave nor free. Trump showed us he has supremacists. in standby mode.

It was always a wrestling match where we had to fight to keep Bidenshoulders from the rug. And even if He victories, Biden this is not a panacea. The fight to make America the country it says it is is a fight that will outlive us all.

America, superiority is not something you can just take and conquer. We breathe it in. We are born into this. We normalize injustice so much that the minute oppressed people fight for their liberation, those who feel free become offended.

The fact that people thought that Barack Obama’s election meant healing for the country only proves how willfully blind people were to the suffering and oppression of others. Donald Trump is not the root of our American problems. He is a side effect, a megaphone and permission to no longer hide his true capitalist and supremacist desires.

Anyone who thought that four years of a supremacist in the White House would mean an easy defeat has not lived as an oppressed person in America.

America, this fight continues out of accountrecount and possible litigation over the votes. Like Trump and Biden With millions of supporters vying against each other as Republicans and Democrats fight for Congress, we are witnessing a battle—divided down the middle—for the new face of America.

This country was designed under the façade of democracy, always claiming superiority. Equality, justice and a functioning democracy require dismantling the system.

We the people must remain steadfast in our fight for freedom. I believe in the power of the people. This struggle is exhausting. This battle requires resilience, grace, peace and joy. This struggle is filled not only with love, but also with righteous anger, and this struggle is not new.

People need to stop acting like it’s something amazing or like it’s an easy victory. We do not respect Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass, Ida B. Wells, Martin Luther King, Jr., Shirley Chisholm, Angela Davis, John Lewis, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the many others who fought before us, who fought for us when we fall. and despair at the prospect of one defeat—or when we think victory depends on one president.

Voting, protests, presidential victory? These are the few strong legs of the many spiders needed for the revolution.

“You must also study and learn the lessons of history, because humanity has been engaged in this heartbreaking existential struggle for a very long time,” John Lewis said in his last words. “People on every continent have stood in your shoes for decades and centuries before you. Truth does not change, which is why long-established answers can help you find solutions to the problems of our time. Continue to build the union. between movements spanning the world because we must give up our willingness to profit from the exploitation of others.”

Across the country, business owners boarded up their windows in anticipation of looters and violence over the election results. People are careful about their belongings. But the violence that is racism, sexism, mass incarceration, police brutality, poverty, hunger, xenophobia, LGBTQ+ discrimination, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia? The list doesn’t end there. People don’t understand the reality: America is violent.

America has always been a lost country, crafting a Constitution of Liberty and Rights designed to benefit rich white people and punish everyone else. We cannot afford to be originalists. We cannot afford to keep the Electoral College. We cannot afford to lack healthcare and education. We cannot afford lawless police.

America will have to pay a human price so called greatness. It’s time to protect each other the way we protect our belongings. It’s time to understand the people we fight for, not just as people in your home, in your family, in your circle, but as people, period.

This is the time when we dig within ourselves, cling to each other and fight to find ourselves. It’s time to fight for the America we say we want, to fight for a new American face. It’s not sexy work to scratch out eyes to see a new future.

I have hope. But I’m not disappointed. Maybe Biden will win. Perhaps he will lose. I believe that freedom is what we fight for. This is what we are fighting for. It is neither blue nor red. The fight for freedom, for better or worse, will be eternal.

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Jenee Osterheldt can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her @sincerelyjenee and on Instagram @abeautifulresistance.