By Al Calloway
Maybe now through President Donald J. Trump, black Americans will be forced awake from the stupor of “equality” and “democracy” and so-called “justice.” These themes writ large within the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights were certainly not offered up with African slaves in mind as participants, citizens, brothers and sisters in freedom.
Then what twisted logic contorted the slave mind into believing that they, and if not, but with sure certainty their progeny, would one day be an equal participant in “the American dream”? And how would such occur, through osmosis, magic, or the will of God via His change of the white man’s heart? (And that same logic would teach generations of children not to gamble!)
Changing millions of Yoruba, Muslim, Ancestor Worshippers and myriad other traditional African religious forms of spiritual expression by outlawing them, denuded mind and spirit with the aid of the infamous cat of nine tails skin ripping whip. Then the European concept of Christianity was force-fed to African slaves rendering them classically conditioned to believe the white man as superior. Jesus the Christ, the Son of God is white; God is white!
So today, in every stratified black community throughout America, what is now called the Black Church not only proliferates, but virtually chokes and drains many of these areas of cultural and economic vitality; drains them of their social essence and mis-educates the people. Every Sunday night and Monday morning black preachers and deacons deliver monies collected from their poor and near poor black church members to white banks downtown.
Too bad for black communities, that these conditioned ersatz leaders don’t see themselves and their churches collectively as a bank, and community economic developers. Simply by organizing into a consortium, several churches can become a bank. All of their members’ savings accounts would each be insured for up to $250,000 by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). As in everything there is a learning curve – invest in learning.
It was during the 2008 presidential campaign that Bill Clinton uncorked white nationalism against Barack Obama and to black people’s surprise, white liberals and moderates said nothing. The floodgates opened wider and nasty stuff emerged from white America and escalated throughout the Obama’s tenure in the White House. It had to be quite evident even to a cursory observer that a swath of white America no longer wanted to be diplomatic about their “white supremacy system/culture.”
Donald Trump played white nationalism like a virtuoso pianist on the white keys with his birtherism media farce. What really went down was all media jumped on the Trump bandwagon because he challenged the birthright of a president of the USA. No one had ever disrespected a sitting president’s very birth. Instead of mounting a boycott of any and all media that ran with Trump’s scam, black civil rights groups, elected officials and the black church murmured somewhat incoherently what little any did speak.
Now that Trump is in the White House, has the Supreme Court and both houses of Congress, and conservatism has nudged practically to the edge of far right just at fascism’s open door, will black people continue following the same long road to nowhere or what?
Will “Trumpism” force black America to re-assess our mostly group politics and benign economic approach within an increasingly apartheid culture? Will blacks finally get off the snide, the hustle, of civil rights and so-called liberalism and negotiate within the entire American political world for access from strategically organized platforms?
It’s all over folks, the hand outs, looking for do-gooders, asking God to do it for us and just waiting around for something good to happen. Black Americans must get up and do for our communities; become self reliant for survival and the creation of a clear path for the development of our unlimited human capacity.
Not only is public education on its last legs, but the level of mis-education in stratified black schools that’s being tolerated by the black church, black so-called educators, civil rights groups and black elected officials is a high crime. White kids are doing coding, robotics and artificial intelligence.
Trumpism is here and black folks had best get busy.
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