Biden has failed Black people before. So what does his presidency really mean for us?

The president-elect’s policy history makes clear that he’s not a radical, and we can’t expect him to be

Vice president elect, Kamala Harris, alongside president elect, Joe Biden (AP)

The election is over. Joe Biden has won. So what now? How does Black America recover from the Trump administration? Are we even capable of bridging the political divide that showed us our loved ones, neighbors, and peers once prioritized lower taxes and job creation – or rather, prioritized white comfort — over our rights? 

With Joe Biden as our next president, we can collectively breathe a sigh of relief… for a night. But we can’t expect a moderate Democrat with a history of working with segregationists to bring about a revolution or abolish systems that disenfranchise people of color. Biden isn’t going to save us – he’s going to make things marginally less bad. 

With that in mind, how do we move forward?

Firstly, we need to remain in the streets. Biden represents the status quo. His policy history as a senator and vice president makes clear that he’s not a radical, and we can’t expect him to be.

Biden doesn’t plan on defunding the police. He doesn’t plan on enacting much real change in the justice system. At a June 2019 fundraiser with rich donors, he said himself that he wouldn’t “demonize” the rich and promised that “no one’s standard of living will change, nothing would fundamentally change”.

Biden pushed for the war on drugs with his 1994 crime bill. He failed women nationally with the Anita Hill hearings. He failed people of color with his failure to support school integration in the 1970s. Though he publicly stated that each of these failings was a mistake during his election campaign, it’s wise to consider where he comes from. In tandem with Kamala Harris’s history as “top cop”, it’s easy to see that there will be no significant leftist push from a Biden/Harris administration unless it is called for, loudly and continually.

Now that we have a Democrat heading into the Oval Office, it is the people’s responsibility to push the Overton window – the view of what the public deems politically acceptable – further left. Once upon a time, queer marriage, Medicare for All, and a $15 minimum wage all seemed like impossible ideas. But progress moves quickly when you push for it, and protests work. Pride, after all, was a riot. Now is not the time to stay quiet because we’ve enjoyed a single win; it is, instead, time to take advantage of the opportunity presented to us.

We need to remain in the streets, demanding justice for Black lives, housing fairness, and more Covid relief in the communities who need it. We can’t return to our comfortable and cushy lives while sweeping injustice under the rug. The past four years have fostered political awareness and righteous anger in women, people of color, people with disabilities, and those who love us. We can’t let that momentum fall to the wayside.

Biden isn’t the solution. Biden is the Band-Aid. We might have won this battle, but the fight – for equality, for Black lives, for the rights of asylum seekers, and so many more causes – is far from over. Especially with so many Republicans in the Senate, we are going to have to continue doing the work.

Black Lives Matter. Immigrant lives matter. Women's lives matter. They always have, and always will, despite being routinely devalued by American institutions. We will fight. We will protest. We will keep working until we achieve the one simple goal of equality. 

We’ve been fighting for generations. We’re not going anywhere.