Today, we pay tribute to the installation of the 46th President of the United States of America, Joe Biden, and his Vice President, Kamala Harris, the first woman and first person of Black South Asian heritage elected to this role. Though this country is fraught with a dark legacy, this transition of power demonstrates this democracy is resilient and steadfast.

This historic moment demands that we seize the possibilities of an inextricably linked humanity or further deepen a malignant and pathological segregated "civil" society in America. As this nation reckons with its founding ideology and history of white supremacy and slave capitalism, we must demand a new social contract—not just with government but between us as citizens—which manifests the promise of equality, democracy, and freedom for every single individual.

History teaches us that the fight against injustice by the marginalized among us has sustained this democracy; so, we fight on and will not tire. And we must dispel fear as a guiding principle and embrace courage and conviction to become actors of change.

In the words of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at the end of the voting rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, in 1965:

"The only normalcy that we will settle for is the normalcy that allows judgment to run down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream. (Yes, sir) The only normalcy that we will settle for is the normalcy of brotherhood, the normalcy of true peace, the normalcy of justice."

The next four years will not rewrite the shameful vestiges of America's over 400-years long history. But we should evoke and hold high those historical moments that serve as reference points that democracy has deep roots in our nation's history.