Posted on 12/05/2016 6:07:27 AM PST by pabianice
People of color, particularly Black Americans, shouldn’t be surprised in the least by Donald Trump’s presidential victory. Although part of me feels like we shouldn’t be acting like we haven’t already survived, despite vicious attempts to destroy us, I can understand the shock. It’s the same thing as saying no matter how much one can prepare for death, you’re never really ready. We’ve been preparing for different forms of death for hundreds of years. And yet, here we are in fear, though our fears have morphed into realities time and time again through Jim Crow, lynchings, police brutality (which has been elevated into its own version of lynching), and discriminatory administrations and courts.
The most frustrating part of it all is that the toughest blows against us have often been from people who were holding our hands, claiming allegiance, while snickering over their shoulders with racist America. This is exactly what Bill Clinton did when he played saxophone on a 1992 episode of “The Arsenio Hall Show,” and in another engagement, gave a speech on how we Blacks were so right to think the criminal justice system is quite unjust, citing, what I call, the one-in-three. (A 2003 “special report” done by the Bureau of Justice says one-in-three Black men will experience jail in their lifetime, and within the past decade, the numbers haven’t changed. This was all another Washington “discovery” that Black folks figured out when our men got 10-year bids in penitentiaries for dealing with that barbaric crack when the civilized did powder.) And not long after he was elected, Clinton signed his notorious crime bill, increasing policing, granting state prisons with an amount of money Washington can never find for urban public schools, and finalizing the three-strikes-and-done deal which incarcerated some three-time offenders for life.
My grandmother just said over Thanksgiving that Clinton’s administration increased jobs for Black people. Yes, partially because many of us young Black women then weren’t competing with our imprisoned husbands and brothers. And I imagine, as a single Black woman and daughter of a single mother whose partner was incarcerated for several years, many lives of single Black women (especially those with children) in the 1990s were made that much more complicated due to many of our men’s absences. (Michelle Alexander’s book “The New Jim Crow” explains all this in more sophisticated detail.) And guess who called himself the “drug czar” back in 2014, crediting himself for uplifting Crime Bill’s policies? It was none other than our dear old Vice President, Joe Biden. Phew, Barack Obama just barely grazed it. And no, Joe isn’t getting my vote if he runs in 2020.
Franklin D. Roosevelt was another beloved president, but his 1935 Social Security Act excluded domestic workers (maids: Black women) and agricultural laborers (40 percent of Black men). He also opted not to pass an anti-lynching bill. Yes, all the dead Black bodies hanging from trees in our grandparents’ day and the bodies bleeding onto the streets in our day (most recently, former National Football League player Joe McKnight) could’ve been outlawed. But Franklin D. Roosevelt said no, because he was afraid of sabotaging his own political standing. You’ve just got to sell those n—— when it comes to protecting your votes, you know?
But all jokes aside, Washington has been two-timing Black Americans since we got here (in chains). And from what it looks like, we wouldn’t have seen any better change with Hillary Clinton than we’re about to see with Trump. Hillary was so gung-ho for Bill’s strategy that she was collecting money because of all our men her husband stacked in jails like sardines until October of last year. In comparison, Eleanor Roosevelt was apparently in favor of not killing Black people for no reason. (Why, thank you, Eleanor—of course, only if the rumor is true.)
Ultimately, I’m actually glad Trump won. Yup, I said it. I’m also someone who’s tired of Washington’s lies. Now we can’t excuse anybody. We undoubtedly know where we stand in America’s priorities. And perhaps this will be the spark that gets Black people angry enough to not allow politicians to take advantage of our vulnerability in the future (of course, if we have a future). If the apocalypse arrives, and we go first, at least we can say we weren’t surprised.
Elisheva Azarael is a Collegian columnist and can be reached at jsimpson@umass.edu.
Stuck on stupid.
Hard to get off that theory.
“We send our young adults to college and they send us back toddlers.” - Kevin Jackson
Elisheva can’t get a date and its all you rasists fault
_________________
This really surprises me. Must be a thoroughly unpleasant human.
I have four adopted black children and lesbians have made many passes at the females, since they were about 11.
My son has turned down some gay men too.
Around here going black is trendy among the homosexual and lesbian community.
Lighten up Snowflake. Wait until you grow up and have to deal with the real world. Talk is cheap and this is Snowflake bull****.
She gets her bribes from Goldman Sacks!
Al Sharpton gets nothing from Goldman Sacks.
Why is Hillary black?
The hyperbole in this is so thick you need a chainsaw to cut it.
Amazing amount of oppression our black brothers and sisters face after eight years of a black man presiding over the most powerful nation in the world, as witnessed by this black woman attending an institution of higher learning. It is true, blacks will never amount to anything... if that’s the opinion one holds of themselves. Bondage is the mind in this era. Some people have a slave’s mind.
As opposed to colorless people.
Sick of It,,?
Racist is what the last
8 years has
Shouted from the Rooftops!
Embrace Your Race!
Do you want to be protected, or equal? You can’t have both. If you are protected, you are property.
But why would anyone want to?
Just remember in the end, we won. Twice, once the “recount” is done. But, yeah. What’s been done culturally over the last 50 years is now rearing it’s ugly head even higher out of the pit.
No, no - “people of pallor” is the fitting partner.
Stupidity indeed. Trump got more black votes than McCain or Romney by a bunch.
And he will get even more votes in 4 years as minorities (at least the ones with an ounce of character) realize that Trump is the best thing that has happened to them in years.
So then was it the same country in 2008 and 2012?
And the tide will lift all boats!
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