Excerpt from Jamaica Observer column published 25 January 2021
By: Jean Lowrie-Chin
WASHINGTON, DC – JANUARY 20: U.S. President-elect Joe Biden fist bumps newly sworn-in Vice President Kamala Harris after she took the oath of office on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol on January 20, 2021 in Washington, DC. Biden was sworn in today as the 46th president of the United States. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
As we watched the swearing in of US President Joseph Biden and history-making Vice President Kamala Harris, we held our breath. After the attack on the country’s Capitol just two weeks before, there was talk of holding the event indoors, but President Joe Biden declared ‘I am not afraid’, insisting that he would not cower in the face of domestic terrorists.
Having watched that tragedy, the attacks on police, the smashing of windows, the noose erected in the yard and hearing the chants of ‘Hang Mike Pence!”, I did not exhale until I watched President Biden and his family, then Vice President Kamala Harris and her family enter the building and saw the doors closing behind them.
We were lifted by Young US Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman, a 22-year-old African American who sang her healing lines into the hearts of the millions of viewers worldwide:
“We did not feel prepared to be the heirs
of such a terrifying hour
but within it we found the power
to author a new chapter.
To offer hope and laughter to ourselves.
So while once we asked,
how could we possibly prevail over catastrophe?
Now we assert,
How could catastrophe possibly prevail over us?”
We hung on her every word because “The Hill We Climb”, the title of her poem, is the hill every nation in this world must climb. We felt the fear and anguish of our American family because we are intrinsically connected, and it made us appreciate the vision of our fore parents who established Universal Adult Suffrage in Jamaica in 1944. We hope the call of Amanda Gorman and the victories of young Georgia Senators Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff will encourage more young people to register to vote, a right that should never be undervalued.
When asked what her priority was, VP Harris answered, “To get to work.” And so the President and Vice President went straight to their desks to conduct the business of the nation. They discovered that the previous administration had no plan for the millions of doses of the vaccine that was sitting in storage, but by Friday, more vaccinations were given in one day than ever before.
President Biden, in his Inaugural speech, outlined the country’s many challenges and called for unity of purpose:
“We can join forces, stop the shouting, and lower the temperature.
For without unity, there is no peace, only bitterness and fury.
No progress, only exhausting outrage.
No nation, only a state of chaos.”
In synchronicity, Poet Gorman recited:
“We will not march back to what was,
but move to what shall be.
A country that is bruised but whole,
benevolent but bold,
fierce and free.”
We understand that it was US First Lady Dr. Jill Biden who had heard a reading by the young poet and recommended her for the Inauguration. What a masterstroke that was – this clean, brilliant, eloquent young Black woman capturing the world and erasing at least for those moments the ugly, backward, bumbling of the previous racist occupant of the White House.
Jamaica Highlights 