The Arrogance of White Supremacy

Today, presumptive GOP nominee for president Donald Trump released a list of potential people he would nominate to the United States Supreme Court.

And I seethed.

I seethed because he released the list in the face of President Obama, whose nominee for the High Court, Judge Merrick Garland, is being completely ignored by the Republican-led Senate.

Trump’s list is full of people who are, by media accounts, “extremely Conservative.” They are primarily white men. They are young. They will work to keep white supremacy alive.

Democrats are powerless to do anything against the obstruction put in place and supported by Sen. Mitch McConnell and the others. In a Politico article, Seung Min Kim wrote that there were nine Senate Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee listening to witnesses “shower praise” on Judge Garland …but the GOP side of the dais …was completely empty.

The GOP has been touting that it is aghast at the violation of the Constitution; they have professed that they believe in law and order, except, it seems, when following the law and maintaining order applies to this president.

“Let the people decide who the next Supreme Court justice will be,” they say, calling Mr. Obama a “lame duck president,” when, in fact, that is not true. Their actions are clear and simply obstructionism based on racial politics. And it is sickening.

This latest action by Mr. Trump, the “chief bully” of this nation, underscores the fact that the core of this nation seems to be filled with rot. Mr. Trump is sickening, with his name-calling and bullying of anyone who disagrees with him, but it is the support of the white American electorate which is more disturbing. Filled with resentment and reeling from an economic downturn that has blown them out of lives that have been at least comfortable, the American electorate wants things to be the way they used to be when there were enough jobs in this nation to allow a fair number of people to live decent lives. They were a part of the middle class. Never mind that many of the privileges they had were denied to black and brown people. What they know is that their lives were comfortable and now they are not.

They believe Donald Trump when he says he will bring jobs back to America. They rejoice at the thought that a wall will be built to keep Mexicans out of the nation, people, they will say disingenuously, who are taking their jobs.

They are doing no such thing. They are doing the work that few if any American would be willing to do, at wages that are inhumanely low. There are stories circulating where immigrants, some legal and some not, are hired out, who do the work, and then are sent away or threatened with being deported without being paid.

Business people want profits, and they want it with as little outlay of their own money as possible. Donald Trump is not going to be able to change things so that the way things “were” will be “again.” Yesterday’s economy is not coming back.

But the American electorate is so desperate for jobs, and so subliminally racist, that they cannot see the forest for the trees. Mr. Trump is acting like an arrogant, spoiled rich fraternity kid and the public is loving it. They are all trying to “be his friend,” like kids tried to cosy up to bullies when I was in school. They must know that Mr. Trump does not care about them and their lives, that Mr. Trump only wants to satisfy Mr. Trump. And what will satisfy Mr. Trump is to win the presidency and be the most powerful man in the world.

They don’t care that he doesn’t have a foreign policy or an economic plan for this nation that will bring “liberty and justice for all.”

Oh, wait. They don’t want liberty and justice for all. They want liberty and justice …and white privilege…as they have always had it. And Mr. Trump knows that and is feeding their souls.

Sad. But true.

A candid observation…

Donald Trump’s Whining Shows his Ignorance

The system of electing a president has been the same …since the days the Founding Fathers set up the system.

So, why is Donald Trump complaining that the system isn’t fair?

It might be unfair, true, but it is the system and it has been in place …forever.

Donald is crying and whining that the system is rigged against him. But it isn’t.

The Founding Fathers made it so that presidents are ultimately chosen by the Electoral College. Whoever gets the most electoral votes is the winner.

It’s a winner-take-all system. So, the trick is to win as much of the popular vote as possible. That way, even if you get just a hair’s breath majority of the popular vote, you get all of the electoral votes of any given state.

Each state gets as many electors as it has congresspersons and senators. Larger states have more electors.

I suppose this is a democratic way of voting. It doesn’t feel like “one man, one vote” is the reality here. Democracy as I understand it goes out of the window when it comes to the ways America has worked to suppress the votes of many, especially African-Americans. Gerrymandering seems to me to be dishonorable; it keeps “the establishment” in power, and it works against the people and their needs and demands.

The money it takes to get elected to the White House is, well, unforgivable. In 2012, the presidential election cost $2 billion. Some believe that this year’s election will cost up to $5 billion. (http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012/02/historic-price-cost-presidential-elections)

How many schools could we build for that amount of money? How many contaminated water pipes in Flint could be replaced? How many services for people in need could be funded by that kind of money?

The system is crazy. It feels unfair. It feels like people’s votes are negated. It leaves a lot of room for the votes of some to be suppressed, and has led to that in years past and even today. A black man in Wisconsin took three forms of ID to the polls in Wisconsin last week and still couldn’t vote. (https://m.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/4engrl/a_black_man_brought_3_forms_of_id_to_the_polls_in/)

It feels like the system is rigged …but it is the system, put in place long before Donald Trump was even thought about. We learned it in civics class in high school, or at least I did. I wonder if Donald missed those lessons.

Sorry, Donald. It’s not about you.

A candid observation…

Punishing Women for Abortion: Wrong

OK. Enough.

Donald Trump, the presumptive GOP nominee for the office of president of the United States, has stepped over a line.

In the Bible, there is a very familiar story about a woman who has been “caught in the act of adultery.” She is being taken to task for her indiscretion. The scribes and the Pharisees bring her to Jesus, and say, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now, what do you say? The next sentence says they “said this to test him, so that they might have some charge to bring against him.”

That scripture always got to me because only the woman was called to task. Presumably, if or since she was “caught in the very act” of adultery, there was someone with whom she was committing adultery with. Where were the men?

Jesus proceeds to bend down and begin writing in the sand, and in my exegetical imagination, I have always seen him writing the names of men who might have also committed adultery with her – or with someone else. Nobody was beyond fault. As he writes the names, the scriptures say that they “went away, one by one.” Finally, only the woman was left, but she received no judgement from Jesus. He tells her to go and not to “sin” again.

When Donald Trump said today that women who get abortions should be punished, I thought of that scripture. The suggestion is outrageous, it is draconian, it is unjust …and it is sexist.

If women become pregnant by men – which they do – and a pregnant woman seeking abortion should be punished, then so should the man who impregnated her.

There is no more immaculate conception. Men are complicit, to say the least, in the condition called pregnancy.

Trump’s statement shows his bigotry toward women. If his antics to date have not been enough, then this suggestion ought to open the eyes of those who have been wooed and seduced by his “telling it like it is.” This man is a buffoon. He hasn’t given clear policies on much of anything, and he claims not to be a “politician,” but now, as the fire heats up and his statements about women are being showcased in negative ads about him, he is being the preeminent politician by saying things that he believes Conservative, religious women want to hear.

I wonder if he’s thought it through. I wonder if he understands that women who have abortions includes wealthy white women who are no strangers to abortion procedures. Is he advocating that they be punished too?

And I wonder if he has the chutzpah to talk about how men who believe in impregnating women and then leaving them to fend for themselves ought to be punished as well. Or if he believes that husbands of wives who decide they want an abortion should be punished, too?

Is this as sexist as it sounds?

This stance of Trump’s is pure reality TV. It is an act of manipulation to get those who are fascinated with him drawn in even deeper. His supporters are not thinking. They are tired and angry and just want things to change – and Trump is taking advantage of that fact.

But to stoop this low is bad, even for Trump. His bullying has been bad. His changing his story on issues has been bad. His inability and unwillingness to admit wrong, when he’s been wrong, and to apologize for even the appearance of impropriety …has been wrong. His xenophobia has been wrong. His lack of knowledge about what is going on in the world has been wrong. His desire to deport millions of Muslims has been wrong. His statement that he’s going to build a wall between the United States and Mexico and make Mexico pay for it …has been wrong and ridiculous.

But to suggest that women who go through the pain and anguish of abortion is inhumane. His statement will give people an excuse to use their guns to shoot women seeking abortions; they don’t need much of an excuse. Such an action, were it actualized, would mean, most probably, that it would be poor, black and brown women who would be the primary victims, because rich, white women have always had ways to get around the system. Just as the War on Drugs was developed to criminalize the drug use of black people, (http://www.vox.com/2016/3/22/11278760/war-on-drugs-racism-nixon) this action would criminalize predominantly women of color, almost certainly.

Nixon got away with declaring his war on black people by declaring the War on Drugs. That action caused non-violent drug users to be criminalized. It caused their families to be destroyed. It affected their children. It ruined their lives …while white people using far more damaging drugs got away with it. There is a gathering at the United Nations in April of multi-faith leaders to protest and to encourage the replacement of draconian, punitive drug laws globally with drug policies which emphasize compassion, care and the health of those who use drugs. (http://www.unodc.org/ungass2016/) I would hate for women who seek abortions to be criminalized and marginalized even further than they are already, just as we work hard to get out of the destructive pit caused by the War on Drugs.

Enough.

Such an asinine and inhumane as this one suggested by Trump ought not be allowed past the front door out of which it has stepped.

A candid observation …

Why a Crazy Faith Can Beat Trump

It is the day after “Super Tuesday” and Donald Trump has come out victorious, as he promised he would.

Many people who laughed at his candidacy, saying he couldn’t win, are worried. The GOP, it seems, is worried. Trump has said all along that he will win. He has drummed those words into the minds, hearts and souls of people in his base who are angry and who feel marginalized. He has made them believe that they can and will win, no matter what the naysayers say, or who they are.

He has replaced their despondency with hope. And hope wins, every time.

It was hope in “change we can believe in” that pushed President Barack Obama into the White House. Back then, the biggest change we were being asked to believe in was that a racist white nation could elect a black man to the presidency. We believed, and we won. Not even racism was an effective weapon against genuine hope, filled with something called “crazy faith,” a faith that says the impossible …is not impossible. at all.

In my book, Crazy Faith: Ordinary People; Extraordinary Lives, I share one of my most favorite stories in the Bible: that of Moses holding, really, a “stick” (the Bible calls it a rod) over the Sea of Reeds, expecting the water to part. God knows the people whom he was leading through, out of, the wilderness, thought he was crazy. They looked at what seemed impossible, and most probably chided Moses for being so stupid.

But Moses held on, and, I imagine, in Trump fashion, kept saying to the naysayers, “the waters will part.” We don’t know how long he stood there. We don’t know how much of a beating he took from “rational” friends who most probably put him down. But we do know that according to the story, the Sea of Reeds did part. The waters parted, the ground on which the Israelites were to walk was dry (where water had been only moments before) and the Israelites got through to the other side. The waters came back together in time to drown the Egyptians, who were after them, to kill them.

Crazy faith got the Israelites through the Sea of Reeds.

I would imagine that Moses had to keep on saying to himself, and then to them, in Trump fashion, “We can do this! We can win. We can beat even this body of water that is here to keep us from moving forward to liberation.” Moses had to make himself believe it so that he could make the Israelites believe it.

Donald Trump is saying to people who believe they have been ignored that they can turn the tide, that they can win, that they can “make America great again.”

What non-Trump supporters have to do is get their message straight, believe it to their cores, and keep on saying it until people believe it.

Donald Trump is not God.

Donald Trump is a very smart man, who knows how to manipulate people and the media for his own good. He does in fact know how to broker a deal.

But he is not God. His power is not absolute. People who do not want him to be president have to adopt a message, keep it, internalize it, believe it, and, with crazy faith in place to keep their hope alive, participate in this system of government which at least hypothetically leaves room for the voices of people to be heard.

At this point, on the non-Trump side, this is a crazy faith battle. There is no time to sit and call Trump names or put him down. That is counter-productive anyway. It is time to get strategic, and to get a mantra in place that will woo doubters to the edge of the Sea of Reeds, believing that the water will part.

Crazy faith is always accompanied by an action, and this is critical. Those who are willing to believe that Donald Trump is not God must be willing to participate in the process to get through the Sea. People will have to work, have to register people, have to make sure people get to the polls. Sitting back is not an option. Moses held the “stick” over the water, but people in the wilderness, confused and afraid, had to decide to participate in the crossing over or there would have been no miracle.

There is no time to be afraid, despondent or discouraged.

Donald Trump has launched a perfect time for the exercise of crazy faith. It is by and through crazy faith, and not by sophisticated political discourse and debate, that Donald Trump can be stopped.

Donald Trump is not God. A faith that defies hopelessness is greater than any obstacle er face.

The power to beat him is in the people, a people filled with fire and this thing called crazy faith. It is that faith which gives us our power.

A candid observation …

(Rev. Dr. Susan K Smith is the founder of Crazy Faith Ministries, and is available to speak on this topic and topics related to the intersection of politics and religion. See the website, http://www.crazyfaithministries.org for information)

And crazy faith

Trump, Racism, and God’s Grace

“America, America, God shed his grace on thee!” Those are words from the song “America the Beautiful” that we all learned in elementary school.

Well, if America ever needed grace…and salvation…it is now.

Donald Trump won the Nevada primary. He will most likely be the Republican nominee for president. Though my politically astute friends try to calm my fear that he will win the White House, I am not so sure. America’s racists are on a roll, and they are not about to stop.

Donald Trump says that he will “make America great again.” That’s merely a euphemism for putting white supremacy back on top. It’s a euphemism for making it so that black and brown people are under the foot of the Empire, denied of justice in the courts, fair treatment in housing, education and employment. America’s white people are afraid of losing power, plain and simple. Some say they are angry because of the economy, but the biggest issue for them is that the numbers of black and brown people are steadily increasing. They are afraid that their base is getting smaller and smaller, and with that, their power, their capacity to oppress “the least of these.”

And Donald Trump says he will make it all better. He is giving them pablum and they are eating it like starving children in underdeveloped countries eat when they are finally given substantive food.

I read a troubling article this morning, about Trump and the so-called “Central Park 5” Trump was on the case, calling for the five black teens accused of raping a white woman, to be convicted and put to death. Actually, his statements seemed more to ask that they simply be killed. (http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/feb/17/central-park-five-donald-trump-jogger-rape-case-new-york?CMP=share_btn_fb#_=_)

What Trump said and did in that case was appalling and troubling …but not for people who still believe in vigilante violence when it comes to black people accused of doing something to a white woman. When it was proven that the teens did not rape the white woman, and the charges were dropped, Trump was furious, and was even more furious when the city of New York awarded the young men, collectively, $41 million in damages.

This is not a man who believes in justice for all people. He is clearly racist, and openly so. He is unabashed in what he says and believes, and he knows he has a large group of Americans, mostly white but not completely so, who are with him.

They want the America of the past, where black people stayed in their place. They don’t care much that America’s “exceptionalism” came mostly from this country’s boast that it was a democracy where everyone could come (pluralism) and make good on “the American dream.” (capitalism). Racists never ascribed to that claim. They were clear that America was to be the land of opportunity for white, property-owning men. Colored people were not worthy of having full citizenship. They were merely the tools which white men would use to make this country the powerful country it became.

They were to be used, not respected.

Trump is singing their song. He is sounding like George Wallace and Ross Barnett and Sam Bowers and other racist demagogues. His being in the White House, his followers believe, will provide a calm to the rising tide of multiculturalism in this country. They believe he will bring things into normalcy in the White House.

They celebrate, it feels like, that he will be like President Woodrow Wilson, a member of the Ku Klux Klan who had screenings of The Clansman and Birth of a Nation in the White House.

So many white people are not disturbed at all at what Trump says because he is speaking to the pain they have felt as white oppression has been steadily addressed. They would not think it bad that not only was Woodrow Wilson a member of the Klan, but so were four other presidents, including Warren G. Harding, who was actually sworn in a KKK ceremony that was held at the White House. Calvin Coolidge allowed cross burnings on the steps of the capital and also allowed KKK parades in the nation’s capital in 1925 and 1926. Trump’s followers are not disturbed at this history, nor, I would imagine, would they be rangled if Trump said he was a member of the KKK. (http://www.thetrentonline.com/revealed-5-us-presidents-members-racists-cult-ku-klux-klan-photos/)

They are just tired of “the coloreds.”

White people of the ilk I am describing have been mortified that a black man has been in the White House, his wife dancing on popular television shows, letting little black children inside those hallowed walls. Many white people believe that America was created to be a “white man’s country,” and all these people of color are messing up what is “supposed” to be.

The media must be in sympathy and in agreement with Trump and his ideology, because from the beginning, they allowed Trump so much free air time – this to the most wealthy man of the bunch running for president. They put his foot on the first rung of the ladder. If he couldn’t come into their studios, they interviewed him by phone. The American media has done much to usher in a racist, hate-filled man, showing that it is not objective at all. They let America hear this demagogue over and over ..and they hardly challenged him.

There is an important chink in this argument, however, that we have to consider. Trump is not only winning with racist white people. In Nevada, he got a big swath of the Hispanic vote as well. According to reports, 45 percent of Hispanics there are Trump supporters, that in spite of his stance on immigration. (http://dailycaller.com/2016/02/24/entrance-polls-trump-dominates-latino-vote-in-nevada/) Does that mean that they do not care about Trump’s open racism?

So, now, here we are. Trump most probably will get the Republican nomination. He will continue to be a bully and a political thug, much to the admiration of his followers. Evangelicals have shown that their love for God leans toward maintaining their view of God in a white-ruled country. They have shown that the words of Jesus, for Christians to be forgiving and to care for “the least of these” have little to do with their religion. And America’s “silent majority” is showing that what they believe in is America’s mandate to be white. If a bully will keep it that way, so be it.

What does God’s grace look like in a situation like this? It is clear that my understanding of grace, and that of whites and others who ascribe to racism, are two different things.

A candid observation …