The New Year has started and Donald Trump is still a major news item, people of colour are no closer to a seat at the proverbial table and the world still has crisises in Yemen, Syria and Myanmar. All this could make me feel as though nothing is changing. I could get up each day and ask myself “why bother”? But no, each day as human beings with responsibilities to ourselves and our families we must find that strength to get up and do. Get up and be. Donald Trump may very well be in the White House until 2020 and beyond. The systems of the United States are struggling under the pressure of his form of governance and leadership but they will ultimately survive. There are bigger problems in the world than managing the ramblings, actions and deeds of someone who is uncontrollable. As one of the very few politicians in the modern age to work hard to keep his campaign promises, Donald Trump is currently ahead of the curve. The effect of keeping those promises are another matter altogether but are for another day and another conversation. What bothers me more than any issue with American politics and leadership is the fact that my people are still sitting outside the door and not at the table. As I age, my brain power dwindles and no longer can I juggle worries for too many things at once. As such, I am choosing where to put my worries and concerns and right now it is placed soundly at the issue of who we are as Black people and where do we go from here. Is it too much for me to expect that during my lifetime I will see us getting what is due to us? One of my grandmothers is still alive at 83 years old and one of my grandfathers died in his nineties. My other set of grandparents also lived until ripe old ages. I share this detail to say that all things being equal I may be here for a long time and therefore would love to see a world in which the primary decisions include the ideas, power, input and strength of the Black race. Before I head to my grave it would be joyous to see a world in which decisions are not always made for us but that we earn and take our place at The Table. Would it not be wondrous if corruption levels were lowest in countries with primarily Black citizenship? Would it not be a day of celebration when our educational institutions were the ones everyone fought to get a place to enter? Would it not be amazing to never see election observers within our borders? Can we even imagine societies in the Caribbean and Africa where all our streets were paved and images of starving children never emerge. What if everyone else was queuing to get visas to visit us and yearned for us to visit them? Is it too much to imagine that the far right politics of today seize to exist because people of colour are welcomed everywhere? Am I too much of a dreamer? Can we get our act together and do what we must to achieve what we can? Yes there is bias and prejudice and hate against us in this world but we shall never overcome any of that until we amongst ourselves get our act together. There are crisis all around the globe and many with no end in sight. The wars in Yemen and Syria seem destined to stay a part of our immediate futures unless egos and age old differences are cast aside along with big egos and a need to “win”. Though I am never sure who truly wins during a war. Myanmar is a reminder that as humans we can and often are cruel and selfish. The images of the Rohingya Muslims fleeing their homeland and suffering in camps is often too much to watch. The question here for me is how can religion ever be the trigger, cause or drive to treat any group of people as less than human. With all that is happening globally it is easy to become distracted but the time has been right for the last few years for us as a race to work even harder at being more educated, being more unified and working hard for all our people and not just those in our immediate groups. The signs from the African Union are that things are changing. Let us hope the momentum continues because in my lifetime I would like to sing from the top of the hills with pride and joy that we have finally taken our seat at The Table. Twitter: @NatsCR The views expressed in this article are of the author.
