What Do I Say of These Things

 I would be untrue if I didn't say that I am disgusted.

So thoroughly disgusted.

And a bit angry.

Not just about what the Anglophile people did, they acted as how they have acted throughout history and have always been a bit selfish, otherwise, they would have reached out for the common good for all people. Now, many of them are in the FAAFO stage, post election, because they thought the one-who-wants-to-be-king was only going to harm "those people."

They are finding out that they are also "those people." 

Since the country was the country, stolen from Indigenous Native Peoples and built on the backs of stolen people, it has always been the oligarchy controlling it. They controlled the people-who-think-they-are-white in all the European iterations of how they showed up on these shores. They even did it to the ones who are as sun kissed as me but who were told they they were Anglophile and certainly not like those Black people. They were all pining for the "American dream" that was dangled in front of them if they only worked hard and pulled themselves up by their bootstrap.

American history is replete with these kinds of stories and the ways the successive groups of people turned on each other to try to "own" a crumb from the king's table. It has been a sad state of affairs that finally came to a head with the inauguration and the magic sharpie that enacted the fire hose of Executive Orders dreamed up by the Heritage Foundation.

African American women, all 92-percent of us who tried to save this democracy, have been alternating by standing back and watching it all go up in flames, much like the image the artist created, and between taking care of our own hearts and souls, and between strategizing and organizing our personal affairs.

No one is safe from the hounds-of-hell let loose, more than the 1500 J6 insurrectionists that were pardoned, more than the Proud Boys, more than the Aryan Nation, more than all of the mediocre white boys who want to be in charge, it is all the rest, the complicit and compliant, including those kissed by God's son. They voted for this.

And they are among the first to find out.

What do I say about all this?

I work with some of them.

Some have said they feel guilt and shame.

Some are realizing they were duped.

Some are still in shock that the leopards are about to eat their face.

What do we do now?

Some have left social media sites owned by the technobrooligarchy. 

I have logged out of those sites and have been on bsky.social. You can follow me. @antonatonitaye.bsky.social. I block all bots, trolls, and just all around jerks, no time for that.

When I preached on the day before inauguration, on MLK Sunday, my text was Psalm 72. It was considered an enthronement song uttering the hopes of the people of the new king. 

Like the Bishop who pleaded for mercy for the people, I preached on justice and righteous.

I am a hospital chaplain.

I've seen the rich and the poor at the hour of their death.

I've seen people who have not lived a good life thrash to their death.

I've seen people who had faith and lived a good life go peacefully and gently into that good night.

What I know is that death will come to us all so why fear it? the Bible that I follow tells me that it profits me nothing to gain the world and lose my soul. All throughout the Proverbs and Psalms, there are proclamations of God's intentions for the oppressed and God's anger and ultimate judgement upon the rich who do the oppressing.

The thing that has been about all this is that these same nerdytechnobros could do so much good in the world and be heroes instead of Nazi-saluting air breathers. 

What damaged them?

I am a mother, so I look at their mothers, what did they not teach them about humility and compassion? About justice and righteousness and that even trying to build a heaven and haven on earth is sinking sand. 

What is wrong with this?

I don't have the answers and even in musing, am still trying to figure out how to move forward.

But I am annoyed at the ones I know, in justice circles, who told me I was "doing too much" when I issued warnings back in 2008 to pay attention to what was happening. See, he-who-wants-to-be-king has been on this vendetta and quest since birtherism. Even my own cousins were against me when I told them they needed to be registered to vote and vote not just in the presidential election. They are quiet now. 

I am also annoyed at the so-called "People of Color" who refused to listen to the lived experiences of African American women.

We.tried.to.tell.you. Has been my phrase since November 5th.

No, the IndoJamaican woman did not run a "perfect" campaign. How could she in like 100 days?

Yes, the egos of OWM got int he way, same as the manufactured idealism of the Palestine protests because it was insincere for many of the EuroAnglo students who disrupted college campuses and what not. They weren't prepared for the long haul or the real conversations. Much like the "Occupy Wall Street" protests of 2011. 

But African American women, holding the line and the course, tried so hard to tell you, the nation, of what was coming and what was needed.

So here we are, and I am still trying to grapple with the onslaught.

Part of that is their design, to throw so much at people that their emotional, rational selves don't even have time to process the shock-and-awe of it all.

All of it has been to erase the presence, gains, and movement of the African American people since 1964. 

So, we are in a different space. 

I am still trying to figure it out.

But what I will not do is comply.

I am sixty years old now.

More days behind me than in front of me but as the fifth generation on my maternal maternal side and the seventh generation. on my maternal paternal side, my heritage is deep in the soil of this land. We are not finished, so I am planning for the survival of my seventh generations in front of me. 

Dynasties come and go.

America died on November 5th.

Will We, the People, birth something else?

Only time will tell.

Will we, be a we, or not?

©2025. Tayé Foster Bradshaw Group LLC

The writer, sitting and pondering, sipping a still-available-coffee, looking into the future.