Lord
have mercy! What has the past several days wrought?! Some weeks
are made for the history books! There is no doubt that history
will look back upon the week of July 14–20th 2019 as a time
when the nation was embroiled in a literal daily specter of racial
animus. The vast majority sinisterly engineered and spearheaded by
our derelict commander-in-chief himself.
As
if his prior, racially inflected comments had not been distasteful
enough, Trump managed to hurl an apocalyptic verbal hand grenade
into the political bonfire when he recklessly chided congresswomen
Ilhan Omar, Rashida Talib. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ayanna
Pressley as being “ungrateful haters of America and that
each of them should “go back to the respective nation’s
that they came from.” Yes! you read that last sentence
correctly! For each of them, that would mean The United States of
America!
Not
surprisingly, as you can imagine, all sorts of hell broke loose
both inside and outside of the beltway in D.C. Trump took all
sorts of verbal body blows and was justifiably being politically
pelted from all quarters, from across the entire political
spectrum. Columnists, pundits, bloggers and commentators of all
stripes weighed in on the matter. Suffice it to say that things
got pretty damn heavy!
While
espousing, cruel, irresponsible, callous rhetoric has been par for
the course for our 45th president, this latest round of comments
shell shocked even his most ardent critics, Even those Whites (and
there are many of them ) who disingenuously try to downplay or
deny racism played/plays a role in much of any factor in American
society, let alone exists, could muster up enough arrogance or
shamelessness to abnegate that the orange haired, hot tempered,
often oversensitive president engaged in a gross level of racial
invective.
Indeed,
the term “go back to where you came from” is one of
the oldest, most pedestrian racial comments in the books. It is
classic Archie Bunker Racism! Pure and simple! As if most of you
did not know already, Trump has had an ongoing history of
employing racist language in his rhetoric to his followers:
*In
the early 1970s, the Justice Department sued the Trump management
for discriminating against prospective Black applicants who were
seeking housing in their properties. Both Donald Trump and his
father, Fred were named as defendants in the lawsuit;
*
He took out an ad in the New
York Times
demanding
the death penalty for five Black and Hispanic kids who were
charged in the notorious Central Park jogger rape case and decades
later refuses to acknowledge his arrogant error and apologize to
these men who were exonerated years ago
*
Reportedly resented Black accountants managing his money due to
what he perceived to be their predisposed, genetic laziness
*
Brazenly re-tweeted racist and anti-Semitic insults from Nazi
sympathizers
*
Referred to Mexican immigrants as “rapists and murderers”
*Said
that a judge was unfit to preside over a case due to his Mexican
heritage
*Was
a primary supporter of the sinister “birther”
movement — along with Orly Taitz — that
promoted the claim that President Barack Obama was born in Kenya
*Referred
to African and Latino nations as “shithole” countries
*Identified
an African American attendee at one of his campaign rallies
stating “look at my African American over there, isn’t
he the greatest?!
The
list goes on! Stop me if I am lying!!!
The
undeniable truth is that such blatantly acerbic remarks are the
epitome of pure, unadulterated textbook racism. Period.
Given
his past and present behavior, Trump’s latest verbally
racially bigoted temper tantrum should have not have caught as
many people off guard as it seemingly has done so. That being
said, there are a number of people who appear to be genuinely
appalled by his latest verbal animus. Truth be told, we are
currently residing in an era where innovative ideas and sprawling,
detailed, in depth, economic and social policy plans have taken
second shrift to brash, tough talking, belligerent, induced
soundbites and rhetoric. The previously long held embraced adage
“you can catch more flies with honey than you can with
vinegar,” has been turned on its proverbial head. Whether
people want to recognize this deeply unpleasant truth or not.
There
are those such as house majority speaker Nancy Pelosi and other
democratic party leaders who are advocating that party members
“take the high road,” “turn the other cheek”
message. These are the men and women (in particularly party
elders) who are very cognizant of how much is potentially at stake
with next year’s presidential elections. Nonetheless, the
reality is that adopting and embracing such a “we are the
world,” “he/she ain’t heavy, he’s/she’s
my brother/sister,” philosophy, may not prove to be all that
advantageous or sagacious as a strategy.
If
President Trump is going to attend, preside over, entice and
agitate his already largely racially rambunctious and unhinged
base of MAGA supporters into delirium at perversely passionate,
frenzied, rhetorical 21st century White supremacist events that
eerily resemble those deliriously and derelict Nuremburg rallies
of the 1930s and eventually spawned one of the most devious,
demonic and evil groups and individual's ever known to mankind,
Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party, then the time for loving thine
neighbor as much as thyself and endearing yourself to those who
spitefully misuse and abuse you has long passed and is very ill
advised.
At
the moment, it appears that deeply infested, weaponized,
racialized politics will be a major staple of the 2020
presidential election. The appropriate response must be to fight
such atrocious behavior with a level of deft sophistication,
fierce force and unabashed, unapologetic zeal! Our nation’s
future could very well depend upon it!