BROOKLYN CELEBRATES THE 2020 ELECTION OUTCOME
As the 2020 Election was placed in a state of limbo late last week, with several states yet to officially announce Joe Biden’s win, I like many remained glued to the television screen in Brooklyn, anticipating the precise moment Arizona or Pennsylvania, Nevada or Georgia (or any combination of the two) would put the former Vice President over the top.
At some point, after flipping relentlessly between cable and network news, watching mock-ups of our map and those consequential states alternate blue and red, this dizzying ombre and the ad nauseam coverage, compelled my beleaguered wife to demand we get out—to get away, to escape the torpor setting in on the sofa as Steve Kornacki and John King simply repeated themselves over and over. No matter how often they enlarged Arizona, my wife lamented, Biden’s path to victory was now pretty much certain.
At this point, late last Friday, the unseasonably warm weather was telegraphing a favorable forecast. As the world waited for that inevitable tipping point, my wife and I soon found ourselves wading through an expectant Brooklyn. Diverse bastions within my little pocket of Bohemia were noticeably cheerful. The 70 degree weather betrayed that we were on the verge of a new dawn, a new season, Trump’s impending fall and the spring-like temperature producing a flood of activity up and down every block we traversed.
Bedford and Franklin, Flatbush and Washington, the avenues which comprised Brooklyn’s spinal column were buzzing with an almost palpable excitement. My wife soon posited, “Can you sense it?” Though my mask obscured my eager grin, I nodded vigorously because, yes indeed, the renewed vitality was unmissable. We both felt it. A pall was beginning to lift.
Our footslog proved to be a fitting dress rehearsal for the next morning as news outlets certified Biden’s now insurmountable lead in Pennsylvania—this leading to the historic instant he eclipsed 270 Electoral votes to become President-Elect Biden. No sooner had the words passed Wolf Blitzer’s lips than we vaulted onto the streets! With Coronavirus raging for the past year, Trump raging for the past four, us having succumbed spiritually, literally, we knew we couldn’t miss the moment America was finally resuscitated—the moment we came back from the dead.
We exited our building to the sonorous thunder of car horns. Where irritation was normally the impetus behind such an action, today, literally every other car was honking for joy. We bounded across Brooklyn Avenue, passing a Black father and son perched in front of their Brownstone—he making sure the young man bore witness. “We did it!” I rejoiced. He matched my fervor with a raised fist and a howl. The streets were electrified. As my wife and I charged up the block clapping, we were greeted with smiles and fist pumps, hoots and hollers. We passed a West Indian woman who hadn’t yet heard. “Wait” she asked. “Biden win?” ‘YES!’ we shouted in unison. Clearly music to her ears we watched as the woman proceeded to do a 360, literally jumping, caterwauling, with joy.
The spontaneous celebration, the unbridled exuberance carried us all the way to the Brooklyn Museum where throngs had begun to congregate. Several people had procured pots and pans from their cupboards and were banging them appropriately; this makeshift marching band contributing to the concert-like atmosphere. People exited their cars and stood atop them. It being Brooklyn, the boom-boxes and portable speakers soon made their appearance as Black and White, young and old, the thrilled and enraptured, those whose tension and disaffection had built to a crescendo, exploded in a seismic, stupendous and momentous celebration. It truly, one of the most indelible moments I have ever witnessed.
We did it Brooklyn… we did it America!