The America You Forgot: Reflections on an Election That Shouldn’t Surprise Us
“When the world tempts you to forget, return to the roots that ground you—reach down, grab some earth, and remember who you are. Let your center be your strength, and never again mistake arrival for safety.”
In a living room on election night, a group gathers, their faces tight with worry, fingers scrolling through phone screens and news feeds. The numbers are in. Trump has beaten Kamala Harris. The room falls into a somber silence, then erupts into scattered murmurs of disbelief. “I thought we’d come further than this.” “This isn’t the America I know.” Their shock is palpable.
But here’s the twist—those voices, now rattled by the reality of America, belong not to white liberals but to upper-class Black Americans. They are executives, lawyers, entrepreneurs, the ones who have “made it,” who believed in the promise that if you worked hard, achieved enough, and followed the rules, you’d be safe. In this America, they’ve been the dream realized. But tonight, the illusion shatters.
In the corner sits another Black man, quieter, watching his friends with that tired, knowing look we saw on Dave Chappelle’s face in the Saturday Night Live skit years back. He’s unfazed, maybe even a little amused. Because he never forgot. He remembers the America that didn’t change just because a few of us were let in the door. He knows that America is an old machine, well-oiled to withstand the hopes of the many and driven by the desires of the few.
The New Naivety
This election didn’t reveal anything new about America. Instead, it peeled back the layers of our optimism, our quiet belief that “things were getting better.” For Black Americans who have gained economic stability, who are no longer in survival mode but striving mode, this election feels like betrayal. There’s a disconnect here, a belief that somehow the old rules no longer apply, that the privilege of wealth or education might insulate you from America’s sharper edges.
But as Ta-Nehisi Coates has said, “America begins in Black plunder and white democracy, two features that are not contradictory but complementary.” That truth remains. America may let you succeed, but it will remind you whose house it is.
When Black people “arrive,” when we gain a seat at the table, we sometimes begin to believe the table is ours too. We forget that entry doesn’t mean ownership. And in these moments—when the country once again chooses its history over its future—America shows us its true face.
A System that Never Promised Us Anything
Trump’s victory, to so many in that room, feels personal, a sharp slap against progress. But it shouldn’t. This is the same America that lynched in the light of day, that held lunch counters hostage, that drew red lines around our neighborhoods and our schools. What we’re seeing tonight isn’t the resurgence of an old America; it’s the persistence of the same one.
In the skit, Chappelle watched his white friends’ faces contort in shock, and he understood. To them, Trump’s election was a sudden breach, a stunning departure from the country they believed in. To him, it was continuity, an expected return. Black Americans have always known that America can twist, shift, and morph to keep itself whole and intact—at any cost. We aren’t supposed to be surprised by it. And yet, this election brings a reminder that even we, when softened by comfort, can fall prey to forgetting.
Reach Down and Grab Some Earth
In moments like this, the answer isn’t found in corporate boardrooms or university halls; it’s closer to home. It’s the voice of an elder, the wisdom of a church mother who has seen enough to know that security in America is often fleeting for those who look like us. When I feel adrift, uncertain of my footing in a world that moves so easily beneath us, I return home and reach down to grab some earth.
That grounding, that centering, is a reminder of the wisdom in our own community, in the lives and struggles of those who remain unbowed. Our hometowns and the people who never “made it out” carry a resilience, a quiet understanding of a world we sometimes forget during our climb. Those who have been left behind have not lost sight of America’s nature, and there is wisdom there that can’t be found in boardrooms or in the data of a presentation deck. It’s found in the grip of that earth, the place that reminds us of who we are, what we come from, and the caution that will keep us grounded.
The elders know that while we may rise, the soil beneath us is still the same. They remind us that our ascent doesn’t mean freedom but rather a different vantage point. In their stories, there’s a warning not to drift too high, to remember what it means to keep two feet on the ground while reaching for the sky.
The Costs of Belief
Upper-class Black Americans are not naïve. We know the rules. But with success and recognition come a quiet lull, a belief that merit and work could somehow soften our place here. Many have taken solace in that hard-won space, only to watch it turn precarious again on nights like this.
And so, here we are, looking at the shattered expectations of those who believed they had entered a “better America.” But America was never going to be better simply because some of us moved up. Systems don’t change when a few are given the golden ticket; they change when the foundation itself is rebuilt. As Coates reminds us, America’s history is a long negotiation of power and race, and that negotiation is rarely favorable to us.
Tonight, America didn’t betray you; it reminded you. And if there’s a lesson in this, it is this: go home, reach down, and grab some earth. Remind yourself where you come from, and let that ground you. In a world that tempts us to forget, it is our roots—and the wisdom of those who stayed close to them—that will protect us.
