Black People and Women, Supporting Trump

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It makes no sense to me at all.

Donald Trump, the GOP nominee for president of the United States, has shown himself to be racist and sexist, not to mention xenophobic. Though he visited a black church and participated in worship, he has not shown any real compassion for black lives. He has said he will bring jobs to the inner city, but he has not said how he will do that. He has said that black people have little to lose by supporting him, saying “your schools are lousy,” lifting up the high unemployment rate among black people, and saying that black people cannot walk in their neighborhoods without getting shot. He has said little to nothing about excessive police violence meted out against unarmed black people, resulting in their deaths with police officers not being held accountable. He has not come across as a friend to black people in the United States.

Likewise, he has shown an incredible lack of respect for women since he began his campaign. He bristled and rebelled when Megyn Kelly of Fox News called him on his name calling of women in the first GOP primary debate, and has consistently said that he deeply respects women. But his language and, apparently, his actions in the past and the not so past, have indicated differently. This is a man who has objectified and disrespected both black people and women, and yet, people in both those demographics support him, some vehemently so.

Trump’s racism and sexism seem not to matter, including his sexual advances and indiscretions toward women. His bullying of anyone who has challenged him…seems not to matter. His name-calling seems not to matter. His mocking of people with disabilities seems not to matter. For his core, nothing matters, and it rocks me to my core.

It is inconceivable to me how any woman, and any black person, can support and believe in this man. His words and his actions have opened a door for people to go backwards. His definition of making America “great again” seems to be going back to America’s sexist and racist roots. He comes off as a privileged, selfish white man who never grew up, a bully by whom many people have always wanted to be called “friend.” Black people in this country have always wanted to be a part of the “in crowd” of white people, a group of people many of whom will never accept blacks as being equal to whites. And I can recall women in college who gravitated to the “jocks” because they were popular, because they had money and because they, too, wanted to be a part of the “in crowd.”

Trump has gotten away with his behavior for years, with people giggling and acting like he is OK. He hasn’t changed, as his surrogates have asserted. He is 70 years old. He has not changed and will not. He has been disrespectful toward blacks and women and many other white males his whole life.

In true form, he, an undeniable bully, cannot take what he gives out. He is the ultimate whiner; everybody is doing him wrong; the name-calling and cruelty he began he and his surrogates blame on everybody else.

He is a classic narcissist and bully, and yet, people support him for the office of president of the United States.

I am not so concerned with Donald Trump. He is who he is and has always been and will always be. Those saying that he has changed, that he has “confessed the Lord Jesus” and has truly changed, have their heads in the sand. Trump would turn against Jesus if he heard Jesus call him on his shortcomings. He’s that arrogant.

What I am concerned with is the mass of Americans, blacks and women particularly, who follow him, who adore him, who desire to get close to him and be a part of his inner circle. I find myself wondering what they do, the women, if and when males accost or insult their daughters. Are they silent? Do they encourage their daughters to just shut up and take it? And I wonder what blacks who support him tell their children and their congregations about how to deal with racism. Do they tell them that it’s not so bad, that “by and by,” when they get to heaven, it’ll all be all right?

Such denial of this man’s decadence is unacceptable. He is grooming a whole new generation of racists and sexists and bullies. America is going backwards to a degree that is scary and troubling. Trump’s damage is deep and will not go away if he doesn’t win the White House. There has been unleashed the arrogance of America’s past, when white men and women felt no compunction at all about racist and sexist behavior; some of his supporters reportedly have said they want to repeal the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote because they are incensed that women may swing the vote away from their beloved candidate.

Does that bother anyone but me? Is America in real trouble? Has the self-hatred carried by blacks and women come to a dangerous day of reckoning? Has the work toward getting rid of these two “isms,” written into the Constitution, been for nothing?

The more things change, the more they remain the same. This country has been forever changed because of Donald Trump, and two demographics which should have run from him as fast as possible. They did not. They gravitated toward him, and in so doing, unleashed a demon I am afraid will be very difficult to quash.

This country isn’t so democratic. It isn’t so moral. It isn’t so ideal. It’s much like many countries which this country has denounced because of their human rights violations.

Land of the free and home of the brave? Not so much.

A candid observation …

Racism Hurts

. US_Marshals_with_Young_Ruby_Bridges_on_School_Steps

Racism hurts.

Maybe that’s the wrong way to say it. Maybe I should say “the actions of racist people” hurt. The ongoing assault on and disrespect of, fellow human beings by a self-declared “supreme, superior race” hurts and has long-lasting effects.

It has been scientifically proven that the effects of trauma can be genetically passed down. Apparently, trauma causes changes in one’s genes as it is going on. Called “epigenetic inheritance,” scientists say the trauma passed down to children causes disorders including stress disorders. Findings in a study of survivors of the Holocaust were published recently. (https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/aug/21/study-of-holocaust-survivors-finds-trauma-passed-on-to-childrens-genes)

Native American children apparently show results of the trauma their parents and antecedents have suffered, and psychologists, sociologists and scientists are documenting physical conditions in African Americans caused by the trauma that ethnic group has endured in this country since slavery. (http://atlantablackstar.com/2016/06/05/post-traumatic-slave-syndrome-and-intergenerational-trauma-slavery-is-like-a-curse-passing-through-the-dna-of-black-people/)

The science notwithstanding, though, there is a very real component of racism that nobody really talks about – and that is that it causes emotional pain of the oppressed in the here and now.

Racism and racist terrorism and hatred..hurt.

I often tell the story of little Ruby Bridges, who at 6 years old integrated the William Frantz Elementary School. This child was eager to attend her “new school,” but had no idea of the racist people who would jeer at her, yell and scream at her, and leave her to sit in a classroom in that school for a full year, all by herself.

Because of cognitive dissonance, white people who were involved in this child’s trauma probably did not think of how little Ruby must have felt, but it had to have been horrible for her. For a year in that classroom it was only Ruby and her teacher, a white woman named Mrs. Barbara Henry, sitting side by side, because white parents had pulled their children out of the school generally and out of Ruby’s class specifically …all because little Ruby was black.

It had to be traumatizing. According to stories of that fateful time, on the second day of her attendance at Franz, a white mother threatened to poison her; on another day, she was presented a little black baby doll in a coffin.

She was a little girl, for goodness’ sake!

Not only did Ruby suffer, but so did her family. Her grandparents were sent off the land where they had lived as sharecroppers for 25 years. Her father lost his job. The local grocery store where they had shopped banned them from entering.

It might have been expected that by now, the 21st century, all of this racial hatred and bigotry would have abated, but it has not. Bryan Stevenson, the founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, says that “slavery didn’t end, it just evolved.” That statement applies to racism as well, a fact that is sad in that too many white Americans live in denial, believe that racism is gone, while they continue to participate in and benefit from policies which support the continued oppression of people of color.

Not only are black people the targets of white hatred and bigotry, but so are brown people, and Muslims. Members of the LGBTQ community are oppressed not only by whites, but by blacks, Hispanics and Muslims.

A woman shared a story with me recently about two gay white men who had adopted two African-American boys. She said a neighbor hollered out to them one day that when Donald Trump gets elected “we, the white people, are going to get rid of people like you and your two little nigger kids.”

What is sad is that people who mete out this kind of hatred seem not to care that words are like knives, digging into the very spirits of those being attacked. Little black and brown children grow up in this nation fighting the belief that they are somehow bad and inferior; the fight to find one’s true Self in the face of such hatred is a difficult one, and many fail.

The emotional pain of racial hatred is as toxic and damaging is physical pain inflicted because of racial hatred. Public lynching has all but stopped (not completely), but emotional lynching is ongoing. It has never stopped. And the lack of concern for and appreciation of that pain is an issue …at least for me.

Black and brown people are criminals if they have a drug problem; white people are “sick” and need treatment if they have a drug problem. Ryan Lochte was virtually excused from his bad behavior in Rio de Janeiro after the Olympics, with many newscasters saying this 32-year old man is “just a kid,” and they accepted his statement that he “over -exaggerated.” Black people are rarely given such grace when they commit faux pas; Gabby Douglas was harshly criticized for not putting her hand over her heart during the playing of the National Anthem. Biles was said to have disrespected her country, but didn’t Lochte as well? The double standard meted out by racists…hurts.

The point of this essay is to say to people who apparently do not realize or do not care…that racist attacks, exclusion from jobs or opportunities or justice because of one’s race, disparity in the way black and white children are treated for the same offenses – hurts. The lack of compassion for parents of black children who go astray, and the tendency to just want to lock black people up and throw away the key ..hurts.

The pain is no less than that experienced by a white kid who grows up in an emotionally and/or physically abusive home. The scars left are indelible; they do not go away. An abusive childhood produces abused adults who then, in their pain, go on to abuse more children. That’s not a color thing. That’s a human thing.

Listening to all of the racist talk, the hate-filled talk, that has swirled around during this presidential election cycle has made my spirit hurt, literally. The oppressors apparently have no idea of how much damage they are inflicting on groups of people – which they have historically heaped on groups of people. They don’t know …and apparently they do not care.

And not being cared about is a hurting thing.

A candid observation..

What is a Joke?

At the height of the Democratic National Convention, Donald Trump, our Republican nominee for president, called a press conference, and during that press conference, he invited the Russian government to hack into Hillary Clinton’s email account.

He said that if the Russian government could find 30,000 missing emails, emails that Hillary Clinton said she erased, that the American press would probably “mightily reward” them. (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/29/world/europe/russia-trump-clinton-email-hacking.html)

His statement was shocking and troubling, and the press, as well as American government and security personnel, jumped all over it. Pundits tried to play it down; it was just “The Donald” being “The Donald,” practicing his craft of manipulating the press, as he so skillfully does. Any press, even bad press, is good, he believes. What better way to keep the spotlight on him, in light of what some might say is a fairly successful Democratic National Convention, than for him to say something outrageous?

But as the press and people who know government spoke out, Trump backtracked some, and said he was merely being sarcastic. And his friend Newt Gingrich, said that Trump had only been “joking.” (https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2016/07/27/newt-gingrich-says-donald-trump-was-joking-about-hillary-clinton-mails/vx5Ml4OXKJmfIcFMaDv6BK/story.html)

I’m confused. I thought a “joke” was or is supposed to be funny. Granted, the perception, understanding and interpretation of what is “funny” is left to the beholder, but there ought to be some thread of commonality, regardless of who is doing the interpreting, right?

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary says that a joke is “something said or done to cause laughter. : a brief story with a surprising and funny ending. : someone or something that is not worth taking seriously.” Good comedians are rare; they are capable of taking what we experience every day and making it funny. Their jokes make us laugh at ourselves, laugh at our habits and idiosyncrasies, laugh at our situations or even how we think. The best jokes, it seems, don’t make us look at someone who has a problem and laugh at them; at best, good jokes make us look at how we look at different people at laugh at ourselves.

But it seems that far too often in our world in general, and in our American world specifically, people say things that insult or put others down and when their words are found to offend, the immediate response is, “It was just a joke,” or “you can’t take a joke.”

Seriously?

When the mayor of a small town in Washington State called Michelle Obama a “gorilla face” and President Obama a “monkey man,” he said that it was just “playful back and forth banter.” (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/washington-mayor-racist_us_55a71677e4b04740a3defd84)

Amy Schumer has been called on the carpet for saying disparaging things about Mexicans. She calls them “jokes.” Mexicans call her words hurtful, racist and offensive. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/07/06/dont-believe-her-defenders-amy-schumers-jokes-are-racist/)

I personally hate the “n” word, but when an African-American is telling a story about some experience he or she has had with friends or family and uses the word, sharing an experience with which we as African Americans are all familiar, it is funny. But when a white person begins to use the word, not becoming immersed in a common, comical cultural experience but instead is standing outside looking in, the words sound judgmental, racist, and, frankly, inappropriate. A white person using the “n” word is never funny, and black people need to drop it, too. But there is a noticeable difference when black people are using it to describe black life, black experiences, black emotions and black pain.

But back to Donald Trump and his invitation to Russia to hack Hillary Clinton’s emails – where is the humor? Where is the joke? What are we supposed to find amusing about a presidential candidate inviting a known enemy of this nation to commit espionage?

Am I missing something here?

It is a cop-out to say one was only “joking” when his or her words have backfired. If President Obama gave a presentation and called Donald Trump some disparaging term that has obvious racist overtones, the airwaves would burn. When people have said things about Trump, say, for instance, about his hair, they haven’t had to back up and say they were joking. They weren’t.

And neither was Trump. He was speaking from his heart, just as too many people do who say things that offend other people, especially along racial, ethnic and sexual lines. Calling someone a name, like too many have done, is not funny. Inviting an enemy to compromise your own nation’s security…is not funny, either.

Donald Trump was not joking and you were not being sarcastic. That’s what makes what he said so troubling, and even more troubling is the fact that his hard core followers do not care.

But many more do care, Mr. Trump. Many more do.

A candid observation …

Water

The water situation in Flint, Michigan, where residents have been receiving lead-filled water resulting in serious effects on people, especially children, has brought to light a troubling thought: that water, or the restriction or, as is the case here, the compromise of quality of water given to poor people, is too often used as a weapon against them.

Everyone knows that in order to live, humans must have water. We are told from a very young age that people can survive longer without food than they can without water. Dehydration can cause a person to die a painful death. Water is a necessary element in order for there to be life …and yet, governments, here and elsewhere, are using their power to restrict or compromise the supply of water to people whom they do not value.

In this country, it is no secret that black, brown and poor people are not highly valued. Some of the entitlement programs, which Republicans want to pare down, were put in place precisely because black and brown and poor people were suffering because of policies designed to limit their capacity to thrive in these United States.

But as this Flint water crisis has unfolded, it becomes clearer than ever how water is being used to compromise the lives of marginalized people here and elsewhere. In Palestine, the Israeli government, which is occupying Palestine, restricts the amount of water Palestinian people can receive. They do not supply water to Palestinian villages, while they readily supply water to Israeli settlers. Palestinians must buy their water on a scheduled basis, and their water is held in black tanks which one can see atop their houses. The Israeli government is in total control of whether or not they get the water they need in order to live.

Even if a Palestinian village is closer to a water treatment plant than is a newly formed Israeli settlement, the pipes supplying fresh water have been laid so that they bypass the village and go straight to the settlements.

It is appalling.

It is no less appalling that an emergency manager in Michigan, who had power over the local government to make decisions, decided to redirect the water supply for Flint residents from Detroit to the Flint River – to save money. It is highly troubling that no such diversions were ordered for people who live in wealthy suburbs. Flint is reportedly has a sizable black residency – over 50 percent. That, apparently, in addition to the fact that Flint was financially strapped, was enough to make the emergency manager decide that the residents of Flint could survive with water coming from a different source, which was cheaper than the water they had been using for years.

The lives of the people who would be affected by the water switch didn’t matter. It was all about the money.

In Israel, it is about the Israeli government, wanting its own homeland, compromising the lives of the Palestinians.

In Flint, insult has been added to injury as the government has continued to charge residents for water they cannot use or drink, and which has already irreparably damaged their children.

The city of Flint, and other cities in this nation, are violating the basic human rights of people by sending them poisoned water and making them pay for it. The Israeli government is as well compromising the human rights of the Palestinian people, making them pay for water in their own land while freely supplying Israeli settlers as they move into Palestine to start a new life. The restriction of water is basically being used as a weapon against poor people. http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/26/us/flint-michigan-water-crisis-race-poverty/)

The situation is so sad, so wrong and so indicative of the depth of racism that pervades not only this country but this world, that it is hard to write about.

But we need to look at what is going on, and, in the case or Flint, get water to the people and filters even as we press for justice, making the local government back away from its insistence on charging people for poisoned water.

It is the least we can do.

A candid observation …

Trump and Farrakhan

A friend of mine said something to me last week which has kept me thinking. He said, “Why do you think the media lets Donald Trump say anything he wants, but has basically censored Minister Louis Farrakhan? Why do you think it’s OK for Trump to say hateful, racist, sexist things, and it’s not OK for Farrakhan?”

I didn’t know. I had honestly never thought about it.

Both Trump and Farrakhan “tell it like it is” according to their followers. Both men have a penchant for speaking to the hearts and spirits of people who are mostly ignored, groups of people who feel marginalized and forgotten, and who are angry about it.
Both men are angry, and make no bones about it.

But Trump gets a pass; the media pretty much looks the other way and refuses to call him to accountability for what he says, while Farrakhan has been vilified and marginalized.

Nothing Trump has said has made the media act like responsible journalists. Most of those who interview him seldom really challenge him and when they do, they allow him to talk over them. They cannot get a word in edgewise.

There have been exceptions. Fox anchor Megyn Kelly, who dared challenge Trump on the statements he has made about women has not backed down. Her challenge caused him to go ballistic, and to attack her in a most disturbing way. As a public figure, seeking the presidency, he had no right to say, in response to her questioning of him, that she had blood “coming out of her whatever..” ((http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2015/08/10/megyn_kelly_blood_coming_out_of_her_wherever_comment_in_cnn_don_lemon_interview.html) Trump is so bothered by Kelly that he now says she should not participate in an upcoming debate, saying she is biased. (http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2016/01/23/donald-trump-says-megyn-kelly-should-skip-debate-fox-says-shell-be-there/) What she seems to be is determined not to let him bully her.

George Stephanopoulos also challenged Trump (http://mediamatters.org/video/2015/12/20/george-stephanopoulos-calls-out-trump-for-makin/207619) and Trump was questioned when he said he saw Muslims dancing in the streets after 911 (http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/23/politics/donald-trump-new-jersey-cheering-september-11/)

But little stops this man and his rants. Not even his latest statement about being able to go in the middle of 5th Avenue in New York and shoot someone and still not lose supporters has garnered a full blown challenge. (http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/23/politics/donald-trump-shoot-somebody-support/) Anchors have been giggling and have been shaking their heads, but they have not been willing to really challenge him. It is troubling to watch and to listen to.

Trump has been disparaging against women, Mexicans in general and illegal Mexican immigrants in particular. He has put down John McCain as a war hero. He has proposed to ban all Muslims from this country. He talked disparagingly about fellow GOP presidential rival Carly Fiorina, saying, “look at that face!” He likened Dr. Ben Carson, also in the GOP race, to a child molester. When journalist Tavis Smiley challenged the media for not challenging Trump, Smiley got a dose of “Trumpitis” as well, as the presidential contender called Smiley a “hater and a racist” after Smiley said that Trump was a “racial and religious arsonist.”

None of what Trump has said, in person, in front of cameras or via Twitter has been enough for the media to turn away from him.

Farrakhan, on the other hand, has been soundly sanctioned by American media. The head of the Nation of Islam has been unabashed about his disgust with white supremacy and Jewish people. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, Farrakhan “… is an anti-Semite who routinely accuses Jews of manipulating the U.S. government and controlling the levers of world power. Farrakhan blames Jews for the slave trade, plantation slavery, Jim Crow, sharecropping and general black oppression.” (https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/individual/louis-farrakhan)
In 1996 in Chicago, Farrakhan said, “”And you do with me as is written, but remember that I have warned you that Allah will punish you. You are wicked deceivers of the American people. You have sucked their blood. You are not real Jews, those of you that are not real Jews. You are the synagogue of Satan, and you have wrapped your tentacles around the U.S. government, and you are deceiving and sending this nation to hell. But I warn you in the name of Allah, you would be wise to leave me alone. But if you choose to crucify me, know that Allah will crucify you.”)

Clearly, Farrakhan’s words and beliefs are anti-Semitic, and he clearly hates white supremacy, but are his words and beliefs any more or less toxic than Trump’s? Is Farrakhan’s dislike of racist white people and Jewish people any worse than Trump’s dislike of Mexicans and Muslims? Is Trump’s virtual silence on issues that affect black people in this nation any less an indication of racial hatred against black people than Farrakhan’s open dislike of Jewish and racist white people?

Aren’t both men Xenophobic? Is Xenophobia coming from a white man less toxic than Xenophobia coming from a black man?

What is up with America’s media? (another friend of mine pointed out that it is not just the white, mainstream media that ignores Farrakhan, but the black media does as well.) Is the fact that Trump is a wealthy white man, a celebrity, who brings ratings up for any media operation the reason he is basically given a free pass? Is the fact that he says what he wants and by and large gets away with it due to the fact he is running for president? Shouldn’t the fact that he is running for president hold him to a higher standard?

It is all very troubling. People have compared Trump to Hitler, and he doesn’t care, or he has said he doesn’t care. This man may very well win the presidency of this nation, and only God knows what will happen to the country should that happen. The support of Trump has shown the widening underbelly of America, an underbelly which is racist at its core. Evangelicals and fellow Conservatives have been largely silent as he has bellowed his racist and sexist rants; it’s only as he has attacked fellow candidate Ted Cruz that there has been a Conservative backlash against him.

But on letting there be free speech and giving vent to those who “speak their minds” when it comes to racism and sexism, there is a clear double standard between whites and blacks. Trump is free to say whatever and Farrakhan is not.

In the land of the free and home of the brave, what is up with that? America’s double standard for white and black people …is showing itself in living color.

A candid observation…