VT Day, Pots, Pans, and Neighbors, It starts with kindness.

 

Joy and diversity on Court and Atlantic. 

We'd been reading the papers, thinking about the last four years, since election night 2016, actually the last 155 years since the end of the Civil War, when Robert E Lee sent up the white flag at Appomattox Courthouse, the last battle at Palmito Ranch, Tx. May 1865.

Many thought it was over.

But the feelings of resentment and superiority never quite ended.

All it took was a kick in the hornet's nest.

The President was shot.

His vice president from the other party took over, opposing the rights for former slaves.

Reconstruction stumbled, failed, and we went back to normal, separate.

Why had we fought the war again?

The reasons or lessons become obscured, unsettled.

Racism was wrong, wasn’t that the reason?

Not for everyone.

That resentment simmered, statues to fallen confederate generals rose, along with Jim Crow, lynchings and a collective amnesia.

A hundred years later, we had a Civil Rights movement and a War on Poverty that turned into a War on Drugs and drug users.

The era of mass incarceration followed.

We always wondered what it would be like to have an entertainer, a despot find his way into the White House.

That was the bad movie.

And then it happened, a savant of cultural resentment, turned the art of the tweet into a con.

It began with a ran about immigrants:

"They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people,” said Trump.

Lincoln said we should appeal to the better angels of our nature.

Trump went to the bottom of the barrel.

He separated families at the border, belittled science, the military, his family, our families, everyone who disagreed, insults instead of policy making.

Women marched the day after his inauguration.

Millions of bodies pushed back through the years.

More arrests than ever.

Black Lives Matter.

Keep families together.

He governed as if to start the war over again.

Fast forward to November 2020.

Some were talking Proud Boys and Civil War.

Voting ended on Tuesday.

72 hours later, we still didn't have a winner.

Will we have to leave if he wins?

No clear route to a winner, he wouldn’t concede.

Five states remained without results.

His surrogate, Rudy Guiliani was ranting about voter fraud outside a porn shop and four-seasons-total-landscaping.

We were eating breakfast.

And then the sounds of pots and pans outside.

What happened, I scream at my neighbors outside.

More pots and pans.

Outside all my neighbors were out cheering.

Was it really happening?

The associate press called Pennsylvania and then Nevada.

The orange menace was outvoted, despite the legal threats, the intimidation, the insults.

People smashed pots and pans, played the Saints go Marching In on Court and Atlantic.

A guy with an accordion and a sax played, Happy Days are Here Again on court.

I always wondered what it would be like for VE Day.

This was our VT, Victory against Trump.

You’re fired, people chanted.

Off to Brooklyn Heights, we walk celebrating, talking with folks, tears, relief, exhaustion.

All over our majestic waterfront, we take in the art, watching out city exhale.

Bands are playing all over town.

I ride the little one to see Hello Mary at Mclaren Park on Lorimer.

Brooklyns popping with energy.

Over the bridge, I make my way to Washington Square.

LOVE Doesn’t bleed, says a man smoking a cigar.

Kids are in trees.

It’s a carnival.

Hare Krishnas dancing.

Rainbow flats celebrate diversity.

“We shut him up man,” says one sign.

“Good trouble.”

“War is Over” says another sign.

“Bye Don!”

They tried to divide us.

And some fell for it.

Love Trumps hate. We need a lot more of it.

A lot more compassion and curiosity.

Hugs to everyone!!@@tears of joy!!!!!!

Messages from around the world, Yea, well done.

The whole world cheering.

All of NYC applauding.

Dancing.

Cheering for mail delivery.

For our friends.

For ourselves.

For the immigrants.

For postal workers,

For queers.

For the Black women who turned out to vote and get out the vote.

For the immigrants, who get it done.

For the kids born to outsiders,

The girls who go on to be president.

For the Kamala

For Joe who stood up after the president sided with the neo-Nazis in Charlottesville and said enough is enough.

Uptown, the march to protest the results has become a block party

"No Trump, No KKK, No Fascist USA!"

Today, November 7th, New Yorkers are joining together to march to protect the election results.

 

Marching downtown from 59th Street, Columbus Circle, people are swirling with energy.

Tim Murphy, who canvassed all week in Eerie Pennsylvania wrote:

“I give it up to the members of RISE AND RESIST, who *NEVER* let NYC normalize into a city that was silent in the face of Trump and right-wing atrocities. THANK YOU. I know your work is far from done, but please celebrate yourselves today.”

Message on Instagram.

Trump got the full 2020 experience, He caught COVID and is unemployed.

Ken Kidd offers, “deep sincere gratitude to all who had the courage to #resist tirelessly these last four years. History will praise you even if our movement isn’t recognized today. WE DID IT!!!”

Love has no color. Washington Square Park Mardi gras!!!!@

Later that night we meet mom for dinner.

She’d turned 83 on election night.

Mom talked about Roosevelt 1940 and Kennedy 1960.

 I mentioned Carter 1976, my first election night. Great to celebrate this moment with you mom... Glad we are turning this dark page.

Sitting with relieved friends on the stoop, walking through Red Hook,

Moving into the light.

Lets learn about each other, empathize with the pain.

No doubt, Trumpism is still here.

And McConnell still controls the senate.

There’s a lot to do.

There is a lot we can do.

It starts with kindness.

On SNL, Dave Chappelle was back, almost four years to the weekend he first hosted after Hillary lost:

"I would implore everybody who's celebrating today to remember, it's good to be a humble winner.

"Remember when I was here four years ago, remember how bad that felt? Remember that half the country right now still feels that way," said Chappelle.

How Trump's Covid-19 treatment was far beyond what most American patients get

He brought up President Donald Trump's coronavirus diagnosis, joking that the President had great coverage in his personal health care plan, which provided him with a ride to the hospital in a helicopter, a team of doctors and experimental medications.

But, he said, Herman Cain died of coronavirus and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie was in intensive care with it.

"Where was his secret serum?" he asked of Cain's treatment.

"That's your leader. Think about that, for four years, that's your leader. What kind of man does that? What kind of man makes sure he's OK, while his friends are fighting for their lives and die?

"A White man. And I don't mean to put this on the Whites, but I've been Black for a long time, I notice the pattern."

"All these White people out there that feel that anguish, that pain, they're mad because they think nobody cares -- maybe they don't. Let me tell you something, I know how that feels."

He said he also knew how police officers feel, when they put on their uniform, that they have a target on their back.

"I don't know why poor White people don't like wearing a mask. What is the problem? You wear a mask at the Klan rally -- wear it to Walmart too."

"All these White people out there that feel that anguish, that pain, they're mad because they think nobody cares -- maybe they don't. Let me tell you something, I know how that feels."

"Believe me, believe me, I know how that feels. Everyone knows how that feels."

But, he said, many people hate each other for it.

"And I don't hate anybody. I just hate that feeling. That's what I fight, and what I suggest you fight. You gotta find a way to live your life. You gotta find a way to forgive each other. You gotta find a way to find joy in your existence, in spite of that feeling.

"And if you can't do that, come get these (n-word) lessons."

 

 

 

A few screenshots tell a story. 

And Sunday, a walk through Red Hook, taking it all in.