Preparing For White Backlash, No Matter What Happens To Donald Trump
The President’s Covid-19 diagnosis sent the country into chaos, but what’s next may be worse for marginalized communities
To be Black and survive in America means being keenly able to predict the dangers white folks are going to inflict on us so that we can adapt and survive—whether avoiding eye contact with white women during Jim Crow to avoid lynchings, or not driving around dark roads in the ’60s to avoid becoming the target of white folks angry about the Civil Rights movement. This survival instinct has kept us alive. Even now, when we leave the house we know to put our wallets in cup holders so we don’t go in our pockets when police pull us over. American streets are full of activists whose lives depend on their ability to predict attacks from increasingly militarized police; they equip themselves with shields, milk, and enough bail money to get free. Blackness comes with the ability to soothsay about the ways this country tries to destroy us. The calculus never ends.
So when it was revealed that Donald Trump had tested positive for Covid-19 and subsequently experienced dire health complications, my group chats and private messages were full of Black folks asking the same question: which outcome is going to wreak the…
