Posted on 12/05/2016 6:07:27 AM PST by pabianice
People of color, particularly Black Americans, shouldnt be surprised in the least by Donald Trumps presidential victory. Although part of me feels like we shouldnt be acting like we havent already survived, despite vicious attempts to destroy us, I can understand the shock. Its the same thing as saying no matter how much one can prepare for death, youre never really ready. Weve 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 havent 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 Clintons administration increased jobs for Black people. Yes, partially because many of us young Black women then werent 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 mens absences. (Michelle Alexanders 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 Bills policies? It was none other than our dear old Vice President, Joe Biden. Phew, Barack Obama just barely grazed it. And no, Joe isnt 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) couldve been outlawed. But Franklin D. Roosevelt said no, because he was afraid of sabotaging his own political standing. Youve 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 wouldnt have seen any better change with Hillary Clinton than were about to see with Trump. Hillary was so gung-ho for Bills 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, Eleanorof course, only if the rumor is true.)
Ultimately, Im actually glad Trump won. Yup, I said it. Im also someone whos tired of Washingtons lies. Now we cant excuse anybody. We undoubtedly know where we stand in Americas 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 werent surprised.
Elisheva Azarael is a Collegian columnist and can be reached at jsimpson@umass.edu.
Unless they wake up, an entire generation of college indoctrinated yutes will suffer angst and despair their entire lives as they search for the meaning of life.
I used to be repulsed by this but now I just find comically pathetic. The more they talk the more they look like delusional imbeciles! Keep it up! What you can’t understand is that you are only providing more of your own rope with you asinine actions.
That's very good. I also like "melanin challenged".
Someone ought to tell this dingbat that the reason penalties were raised were because of the damage crack was doing in black communities.
The person who led the charge was.....Jesse Jackson.
Another weenie looking for a handout from whitey.
It’s as if we have not had a black president for the past eight years. They are never going to let this go, are they?
Oh for the Sake of Pete
when our men got 10-year bids in penitentiaries for dealing with that barbaric crack when the civilized did powder.)
And IIRC some in the black community clamoring for harsh sentences to get their kids off the stuff...right after Lenny Bias’s death. Now that it happened, its a sign of racism.
I do not see her on a jetway boarding a plane to wherever she thinks is better.
None of them ever do: they just want to bitch and moan.
An orange person defeats a white person in a nation who last elected a black person who promised to improve race reltions....because pro-white racism...yeah...
Poor thing, no wonder they don’t allow her her own email account. Bet she’s only taking 9 hours and 6 are liberal studies.
My grandmother just said over Thanksgiving that Clintons administration increased jobs for Black people.
Not as many as Reagan’s did, Grandma.
I just received a letter from a couple guys in my grad research group who are raising funds for an endowment to continue the work we were doing when I was there. I have the form all filled out and was going to send in $5k this year. Now, nothing. I already put my checkbook away after my undergrad school declared itself a sanctuary school. I had been giving $5-10k/year for a decade and had interviewed applicants for admissions since the early 1990s. I’m done!
Many of us will be spending a ton of money for our kids College education. Can guarantee it will not be spent at a college that lives in the insane fantasy world of liberalism.
Many of us will be spending a ton of money for our kids College education. Can guarantee it will not be spent at a college that lives in the insane fantasy world of liberalism.
Eight years is a long time in young lives, so many never felt or heard of losing in a political contest.
I think they always thought their side always won because they were convinced through media and education propaganda that they were good and all else was racism.
To them, how did good lose to the rise of another Nazi like rise in hatred?
They don’t understand true history IMO. How do they equate people gassed to death in showers with some people having to go back home and applying legally to come back?
Was home like being gassed to death after serving time in slave labor camps?
So either we are getting a vast stretch here to find victimhood, or they are slamming where they came from as hell on earth having to go back and then to have to apply legally for a work visa.
“Elisheva Azarael is a...”
...drooling moron.
He / she is not just idiotic politically, he / she is a bad writer. And what is the Bureau of Justice? If I were associated with UMass as either student or faculty or even the janitorial staff, I’d be embarrassed by this drivel.
The answer for the black culture is the restoration of the nuclear family. They refuse to even think it.
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