The last time we had a real crescendo of hatred in this country it lasted for more than 200 years, slavery and continued with explicit and implicit Jim Crow. We are nowhere close to a repeat of that sort of mass barbarism, but the band is tuning up. I am not afraid to say it; Black Americans and other people of color have been waving a warning lantern in the tower for hundreds of years. From the long-dead abolitionist, orator, and author Frederick Douglass to violent insurrectionist Nat Turner, black Americans have been shouting the cautionary tale of a crawling underbelly of racism that seeps below the surface and continues to rule this country for what seems like forever. In 1965 Martin Luther King Jr. warned, “…the southern aristocracy took the world and gave the poor white man Jim Crow. (Yes, sir) He gave him Jim Crow. (Uh huh) And when his wrinkled stomach cried out for the food that his empty pockets could not provide, (Yes, sir) he ate Jim Crow, a psychological bird that told him that no matter how bad off he was, at least he was a white man, better than the black man.”
Not much has changed economically to shrink the divide between the average white man and the average black men. The largesse of government programs has increased for people of color, but to paraphrase Bill Clinton, that tide has risen the boat of poor whites as well. So, what is really behind this animus and hatred that would lead a man to walk into a grocery store and cold-bloodedly gun down two black shoppers while at the same time loudly assuring white shoppers their skin color makes their lives worthy? Or another deranged killer entering a synagogue and issuing his personal, manifesto that has been swimming in the pool of his demented mind, “all Jews must die!” Among the 11 dead was a 97-year-old woman, was she a threat or just in the line of fire of a coward?
This incident was just a few months beyond the one-year commemoration of the death of Heather Heyer who died a day after White Supremacist marched through the streets of Charlottesville, Virginia chanting, “Jews will not replace us!”
Black women are leading the way, they have voted in record numbers for candidates deemed to have no chance of winning, you are welcome Doug Jones. Hillary Clinton was widely and roundly criticized for telling a truth, that a great swath of people voting for Donald Trump did it because they are “deplorable.” I know some of you cringe and say oh no, oh no they are good people who are just scared and frustrated. I am a black man, with black children and black friends and I can no longer stand by and let your politeness kill me or my family and friends.
Donald Trump tried his best to slaughter the fatted calf of riches paid to the NFL by telling the players [mainly black] to shut up, salute the flag and ignore the needless deaths of your fellow Americans. The players did salute the flag by demanding that its colors fly for the freedoms it promises us all.
8 Days: Vote in ’18 for Change.