The Republican party and conservatives want America to believe that the last person at the end of the bar at 2 a.m. is our only chance for a fun night. Conversely, like the bleached blonde in clear heels and the guy at the convention with a pocket protector, nursing a Tom Collins, one hopes Americans awoke from their one-night stand ( that lasted four years), sobered up, and vowed never to drink political Moonshine again. Unfortunately, here we are once more, faced with reelecting the incoherent blonde—Don Draper wannabe, drunkenly spending other people’s money, and looking to screw us for another four years. Just as women were convinced for so many decades that the way to success was subservience, it seems that concept has been passed on to black conservatives.
Seldom do I allow myself to rant because it generally leads to wild speculation and words you cannot swallow later. However, I am allowing myself to indulge in the case of Congressman Byron Donalds (R-FL). America started the political season with Republican and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis touting the advantages black people garnered from ‘enslavement.’ My ancestors learned marketable skills, according to DeSantis. “They're probably going to show that some of the folks that eventually parlayed, you know, being a blacksmith into doing things later in life,”DeSantis said. The last time I heard or read language so offensive or disgustingly disgraceful was an article by the late Pat Buchannan, espousing that blacks (then and now) should be thankful white people brought them to America and were enslaved.
“First, America has been the best country on earth for black folks. It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known,”wrote Buchannan.
He continued his moronic and unfathomable excuse for slavery by bringing up welfare, section 8 housing, and earned income tax credits among his list of why black people should be grateful. He ended his screed—worthy of any Grand Dragon of the KKK by asking,
“We hear the grievances. Where is the gratitude?”
Following the DeSantis declaration that blacksmithing saved the minds and souls of Africans, Nikki Haley—a woman of color who previously described the racism she felt in her own life as a child of immigrants told us that America has never been racist. “We’re not a racist country,”she told Fox News host Brian Kilmeade. “We’ve never been a racist country,” she said.” When my kids would lie and tell me they did not eat the candy with their lips smeared in chocolate, I would tell them it was not the lie that bothered me but that they thought I was stupid enough to believe it. I am pretty well-traveled and have heard a lot in my time. Having white men misstate history and excuse their ancestors for their grievous atrocity is almost expected. Even hearing a conservative woman like Nikki Haley deny the obvious was not shocking.
That brings me to the latest bit of ignorance displayed by what, all accounts, is a learned black man: Congressman Byron Donalds. I have seen his likes before; growing up black in America has unfortunately been imbued with a history of self-hating behavior. Pressed or conked hair was the answer to kinky curls, giving one “good hair” or the brown paper bag test. I allow myself to believe that those days had passed with enlightenment, with the advent of the Crown Act, and tossing away any ideas that lighter hues were more worthy or acceptable. Along comes Justice Clarence Thomas, Tim Scott, or, more recently, Byron Donald to remind me that all skin folk ain’t my kin folk. Judge Thomas was afforded the help of affirmative action and the Voting Rights Act but wants to pull up the ladder behind him. Byron Donald is either the world’s greatest opportunist or shameless.
“You see, during Jim Crow, the Black family was together. During Jim Crow, more Black people were not just conservative — Black people have always been conservative-minded — but more Black people voted (black people could not vote in the Jim Crow South) conservatively,”Donalds said.
The notion that black folks overcoming oppression, cruelty, and murder should be a feather in the cap of white America is as absurd as punching someone in the mouth and complaining they hurt your hand. It is hard not to be angry at people like Rep. Donalds when one grows up seeing one’s people shot, beaten, arrested, and used, shielded by the excuse of law and order. I am reminded of an impromptu press availability by basketball coach Glenn “Doc” Rivers after the police shooting of unarmed Jacob Blake:
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