My Brothers and Sisters,
Donald Trump cannot become President.
Hillary Rodham Clinton is guilty of many things.
- She is a self serving politician of the highest order
- She was negligent at best in regards to important documents during her time as Secretary of State
- She used dog whistle tactics to attack Obama during the 2008 primaries
- She comes across as insincere
- She uses her celebrity status to earn exorbitant paychecks for speaking engagements
- The Clinton Foundation has questions that must be answered in regards to Haiti.
I get it. She comes across as the typical Washington politician that's ignored our community for decades except for election time. Some of you may even feel betrayed by Obama for not doing what you thought he would for us. Voting for Trump, you think, would show the Democrats that we're not to be taken for granted, which is exactly how the Republican base feels and why Trump has even gotten this far. Some of you may feel you'd rather face an open wolf than one in sheep's clothing. Just for once, you want to be heard, acknowledged as a united group, and to prove that you're no one's political crutch.
Only one problem. Electing Trump would effectively silence us.
I'm not going to get into all of the ridiculous, insulting, idiotic, predatory, and deplorable (yeah I said it) things he's said over the past 2 years. The New York Times needed 2 pages to print them all yesterday. I'm not even going to remind you of his position as Head Birther in Chief. All I'm going to remind you of his views on black people.
The last Presidential candidate that presented himself as the keeper of "Law and Order" was Richard M. Nixon. The Nixon administraton felt the best way to deal with black people was to flood our neighborhoods with drugs, heavily criminalize their use, and destroy black families. It's a legacy many white suburban families are now struggling with. Anyone older than 40 should easily recognize the rhetoric from Trump as the same buzzwords Nixon used. Disguised as support for law enforcement, Nixon was really referring to extermination of the Black Panthers. Trump, of course, is referring to quelling Black Lives Matter. Under the Obama Presidency, unprecedented levels of racist police corruption were exposed. Though few of the high profile cases resulted in arrests or convictions, the Department of Justice got more involved in protecting the rights of Black Americans than they have in the past 30 years. Should we really believe that a President Trump, who thinks we all live in ghettos, go to poor schools, get shot just walking outside, and still thinks the DNA-exonerated Central Park Five are guilty, would direct his DOJ to the protection of black lives? It's more likely he would accelerate the rate of incarceration (he's advocated expanding stop and frisk to the federal level) then dismiss it as us not taking personal responsibility as most white conservatives do when confronted with the truth of how ghettos were created in the first place.
A man who wants my vote should actually know what my problems are. Intimately. Hillary does. For all her faults, she knows our grievances inside and out. She's too intelligent to feign ignorance, which is why the email scandal is so infuriating. Too often we simply accept Trump's ignorance as Trump being Trump. I refuse. Ignorance of our issues as the leader of ALL Americans, the excuse we gave Obama for not being militant about black issues, is unacceptable. It guarantees that we would be completely ignored and dismissed like whiny children with the same paternal arrogance we see too often from both the left and the right. Trump wouldn't even pretend to care about our issues because he doesn't understand them. Only when cars start burning would he respond the way he knows best. With force.
We have made steady progress in the post Civil Rights era. This isn't Nixon's America. This isn't Reagan's America. This isn't even Bill Clinton's America. Despite the old guard's best efforts we have more of a voice in our county's future than at any other time in its history. Cut through the media fluff. See past the anger. Don't set us back by electing a man who thinks the best thing about us is our vote. You can be heard by loudly telling him and his cronies that we demand more of a President than being born a rich white male. Frankly, that's all he has to offer.
I'm with her.
No comments:
Post a Comment