In an op-ed, guest culture writer Amani Thomas talks Michelle Obama, post-election “Black Girl Sabbaticals” and laments the absence of an “Olivia Pope” figure in American politics.
It’s been nearly ten years since I released anything on this blog, and so much has changed. One day, maybe I’ll share the twists and turns of life and some of what’s been guiding (and sometimes carrying) me through. But today, America has a problem. First Lady Michelle Obama is at home this Inauguration Day, along with many others, and the country has been shaken to its core – again. The Republic needs saving — Where is Olivia Pope?
Olivia Pope and ABC’s “Scandal” took the world by storm for 6 years. From 2012 to 2018, millions of viewers descended onto their couches every Thursday to watch Shonda Rhimes’ glory for #TGIT (Thank God It’s Thursday) featuring “Grey’s Anatomy”, “Scandal”, and “How to Get Away with Murder”.
With 124 episodes, “Scandal” steadily gave viewers something to debate, marvel at, and ponder:
- Will Olivia and Fitz ever have a happy ever after?
- What’s really going on at the White House?
- Who is calling the shots, or even choosing which shots make it up for consideration?
- To what lengths will our nation’s leaders go to spin a story, control an outcome, or save themselves?
- Where the hell is Rowan right now? WHO is our Rowan?
Confession: I was not amongst the original fanbase for Scandal. Personally, I found more of a thrill in watching Annalise Keating escape prison or death through a narrow opening each week. Truthfully, I also subconsciously struggled with the idea that Olivia Pope existed to serve at the pleasure of the president. What I’ve learned since then with a 5-week binge of the show is that her character turned me off because this Black woman’s persona was widely relegated only by her affair with the president. No one spoke of her brilliance, fervor, resilience, or cunning charm — only of her body and what she chose to do with it. Until they needed her most.
Up until season five, Olivia was best known for saving the day from her office O.P.A. with a team of unusual suspects. Burying bodies, sweeping dirt, and leveraging her connections to keep the world afloat, Olivia was as committed to her work as she was to her popcorn and wine. Her relationships suffered. Her boundaries grew blurrier with every episode. And as desperately as she wanted to run away with Fitz to Vermont or stand in the sun with Jake, neither plan nor partner could truly save her. Once her relationship with Fitz became public knowledge and her friend, partner, and protégé Abby used her own “kill folder” against her, it was clear that Olivia had reached a dark point. The country she loved, killed and sacrificed to protect turned against her.
Now, the show doesn’t stop with season five. Every Scandal fan knows that she goes on to reclaim her power, fights for her soul, loses key relationships, and rebuilds in many ways until the very end. And yet, what many people might have missed is the emotional strife she endured in the process.
- We see her affair with Fitz and question her morality yet fail to raise the same questions for him, Mellie, Andrew, and every other elected official that Olivia saves.
- We see Olivia wrestle with her own morality for the sake of advancement — hers and many others’ — knowing that she could not fall a step behind.
- We see a woman willing to let her friends be killed to maintain control and power, but we fail to empathize with the woman whose control and power were hijacked in a kidnapping and hostage situation.
- We see her broken family and the twisted affairs between them yet fail to notice her father’s integral, and often most consistent, effort to protect her — or that he is one of the only ones to do so.
Olivia Pope is a fictitious example of Zora Neal Hurston’s depiction of Black women in America: the mule. She carried the burdens of each administration and difficult decision on her back along with the traumas and turmoil placed upon her through life. Her father raised her to be twice as good to get half as much, an ideology as true to Black culture that it could be hashtagged and trending within a day.
Olivia’s world and the Scandal storyline are fictional, sure, but they are also parallel to Black women’s experiences every single day. If ever and whenever we grasp power or control of our destiny, we often cannot afford to lose it. Those we serve and save do not see how we must be served and saved. We too often do not have time to lick our own wounds because the infirmary is full. We love and care for others deeply, aiming to nurture their growth and be the support that they need, but it is to our own detriment. We forge alliances and partnerships that we hope can build the collective strength to overtake oppressive systems, only to find that our partners and allies are the moles.
There is no reprieve for us in these practices, yet we have been given the role of mule for seven seasons or decades or generations — and old habits do die hard. However, I genuinely believe that the end of this cycle is near. It began for me on the morning of November 6, 2024, when I watched tears swell in my daughter’s eyes as she processed feelings of rejection and fear as a result of the 2024 Presidential election. We’d spent weeks celebrating a Gladiator of our own in a historic, brief campaign for the greatest leadership role that America has to offer. She joined me at a polling booth in Oak Cliff, Texas, and spent the night of election day making plans for a trip to D.C. to visit her uncle and potentially breathe the exuberant air of this Gladiator’s city.
Instead, we watch today as America braces itself for another four years living in a reality that only Hollis Doyle himself could have imagined. And, fresh off of my own 5-week binge, I could not help but wonder:
How many people wished we had an Olivia Pope to save us now? How many people are wondering where she is or who may step up to play her role and save us from ourselves? If that is you, I can tell you…
She is with us — the 92% of the Black women who voted to elect a Gladiator. Olivia is on Black Girl Sabbatical and so are we. She, like First Lady Michelle Obama, has decided to skip the inauguration of a new president and will not be celebrating this new administration. As the new administration aims to target families, communities, and people en masse, Olivia will be celebrating a new dawn and cycle of Becoming, much like Mrs. Obama. We, members of the 92% demographic and likely many others, join them and wish you well in doing so.
We leave this nation to you, the “ones in charge and masters of the universe”. As Papa Pope shared, your complacency and privilege have left this country in a state of neglect, and you must now survive without Olivia. Without the Gladiators. Without us as your mules. The old habits have gone to glory and we are at home, in therapy, with our friends and families, signing off and leaving work at respectable times. We surrender our long days and nights of working to create your dream for evenings with popcorn, wine, and Stevie Wonder’s “Future Sunday Days” in the background. Because what is America without Olivia Pope or the 92%. Without those very beings who, like Command, have been integral in ensuring this nation still stands.
We have made America as great as we could. We have freed ourselves from the weight and responsibility of being your mules. Your turn
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This work has been edited for republishing by its original author, Amani Thomas, of medium.com/@somethingtosay. Amani Thomas is a selective writer in Dallas, Texas. Her writings are inspired by her upbringing and experiences as a Black woman born and mostly raised in the American South. A researcher and sociologist at heart, she earned a bachelor’s degree in African and African American Studies and Sociology from the University of Memphis as well as a Master of Public Administration degree from the University of Texas at Arlington.
