I wish I knew who took this photograph. I saw it this morning and I had an immediate emotional response to it. It’s a powerful photo. It’s not art, but it documents something critically important about yesterday’s announcement that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris had won the 2020 election.
The finger is a gesture that’s been around since the Greeks and Romans. It’s a universal gesture of contempt, of anger, of disrespect, of defiance. It means Fuck you, it means Go fuck yourself, it means Shove this up your ass. It’s NOT a polite gesture.
We’ve seen this gesture a lot during the Trump administration. We’ve often seen it at Trump rallies, when Comrade Trump would point out the ‘fake news’ journalists. For these Trump supporters, the finger is an expression of rage and resentment and hatred. It’s Fuck you for who you are and for not supporting Trump.
We’ve also seen it used by folks opposed to Trump. Because Trump rarely appears in front of people who don’t support him, the finger has most often been displayed metonymically (yes, that’s a real word). People give the finger to some thing or object that represents Trump (like one of his properties). In this sense, it’s usually an expression of defiance as well as anger. It’s case of Fuck you and what you stand for.
There was, of course, the case of Juli Briskman, who was famously photographed in 2017 giving the finger to Trump in his motorcade as they passed her on her bike. She said,
“It was just sort of like, here I am on my bike. I’ve got nothing, right? This is pretty much the only thing I had to express my opinion. He wasn’t going to hear me through bullet-proof glass… So that was pretty much how I could say what I wanted to say, right?”
Ms. Briskman was subsequently fired from her job as a government contractor for taking advantage of the opportunity to say what she wanted to say. Her finger was an expression of Fuck you, you don’t represent me or my values. Happily, she was later elected to the Loudon County Board of Supervisors. There’s a bit of poetic justice for you.
The finger in all its manifestations has been a constant during the Trump years. But take another look at that first photograph. Look at the faces of the people. Notice the absence of anger. That’s what makes this photo important, I think. This finger isn’t an expression of “Fuck you, I HATE you, get out!” This is a joyful Fuck you, Donny. This is an expression of “I’m SO happy you’re leaving, now you can just fuck right off.”
To me, the the spontaneous celebrations were the most amazing and delicious aspects of yesterday. The unplanned, impromptu eruptions of joy and happiness and relief. It was an organic response to the release of four years of tension. It was the dancing and the laughing and the shared sense that years of darkness and horror and sickness and death and despair were giving way to a brighter future. Yesterday we weren’t just saying Fuck you Donald Trump, we were also saying Fuck you to ugliness and racism and hate and Covid and the constant weight of the gloom of Trump.
Yes, there’s a shit-ton of work to do. Yes, there are going to be ugly times ahead. But man, let’s not forget how we felt yesterday and how many of us still feel this morning. Let’s hang on to that joy. Joy is nourishment and it will sustain us through the coming months and years.
EDITORIAL NOTE: The photograph was taken by AP photographer Evan Vucci. Thanks to Patrick Power for alerting me to this.
gregfallis.com 
Reblogged this on It Is What It Is and commented:
My sentiments exactly … “Yes, there’s a shit-ton of work to do. Yes, there are going to be ugly times ahead. But man, let’s not forget how we felt yesterday and how many of us still feel this morning. Let’s hang on to that joy. Joy is nourishment and it will sustain us through the coming months and years.”
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RIP America. Ben, we tried to keep it, but the racist, ignorant half of a nation spoke and decided they hate America.
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Thankfully, the racist, ignorant half lost.
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There’s a huge and important difference between ‘hating America’ and hating what the US has become under Donald Trump. The US used to be a beacon of freedom and acceptance; under Trump it became a nation hostile to others and hostile to many of its own citizens. The US used to be nation that could be trusted to keep its promises; under Trump we’ve betrayed some of our most important military allies and we’ve insulted and alienated nations with which we had a long history of cooperation. The US used to be a leader in science; now we have leader who ignores science.
Many of us love America; we’ve just become ashamed of it.
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I am so happy for you and your country and even the rest of the world. Yesterday I felt lighter and happier and kinder than I have in a long time – and I am Canadian – and I realized it was the anger and fear I didn’t know I was carrying – lifting.
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What I find most surprising is that for many of us, Biden wasn’t in our top five favorite candidates — but I think we’re all so grateful and relieved to be able to put our trust in somebody who is fundamentally a kind, decent, caring person.
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You know what would make America great? It’s people living their lives to their fullest potential, free from the nearly constant drag of entitled White bigots claiming ownership of the American dream. That’s the joy I see on those faces, with liberty and justice for all.
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A trans friend was over the moon because Biden mentioned trans folks in his acceptance speech. That’s all it took — just the acknowledgement that they existed and were considered important enough to mention — for them to break into tears.
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I’m so glad for you and your country. I’m also extremely happy that we in the rest of the world don’t have to listen to the puerile ravings of the orange psychopath every ten minutes.
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It really means a lot to hear so many non-Americans say how happy and relieved they are that the Trump regime is ending. Thanks for saying that.
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I have always admired many things about the USA, and I’ve worked there and even lived there for short periods, and the whole Trump disaster just made me sick to the stomach. Incredibly sad to see a system weaken to the point where an individual with all the most despicable attributes of a human being should find his way into such a position of influence. I know we’ve seen it elsewhere in Italy and Russia and South America, but it’s tragic to see it getting a foothold in the thoughtful structuring of the American democracy. I hope people have learned from it, but at the bottom of my heart I fear they have not.
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