White-Male Privilege cont. (Politics)

I wrote this months ago and never published. It is more valid today than when I wrote it. Enjoy!

Donald Trump has recently begun a half-hearted effort to woo black voters to the Republican Party, which begs the question; why don’t more black people join their side? The truth is we black people have never felt that we have dominion over our own destiny, much less over the most powerful country in the world. Needless to say, we definitely don’t feel we control any significant part of this nation’s politics and our decisions are always between the lesser of the two evils, both of which will do what they want to do. Like kids on a family road trip, we can suggest where to go and we might even be able to effect a stop or two, but the ultimate destination is up to the people with all the power and their agenda. The Republican and Democratic Party are driving America’s car on the road trip we call “Democracy” and we black people are merely passengers. 

Both parties are racist. Before you close your ears let me explain: Having written us black people in as slaves, one must at least say America was definitely a racist country from its inception. Anyone who begs to differ should have his or her racism-meter recalibrated. Being we never fixed the damage done by the slavery institution, despite black people constantly asking, we can at least say Democratic and Republican leadership are willing to live with the racism injury as long as it is on a part of the American body they don’t like. It’s like if an undesired mole on someone’s body suddenly started to shrivel up I’m sure they wouldn’t ask the doctor to make it healthy again. Members of both parties seem to feel that ending slavery was the fix. Ask yourself this: If someone held you down and punched your face repeatedly until you were a bloody pulp, would ceasing to punch you fix your broken nose, cracked teeth, black eye and busted lip? No. And ending slavery did not fix the damage done by the evil institution.

Why do black people support the Democratic Party?

So why do we support the Democratic Party? Because it’s the party that operates under the guise of helping minorities, including white women. In reality Democratic Party members, driven by self-interest, make a career out of exploiting minorities’ need for help. For instance, this year Black Lives Matter Co-founder Patrisse Cullors was invited to join the Democratic platform committee and make amendments to the party platform. She proposed parts of the I Can’t Breathe Act only to have them rejected. To avoid them formally rejecting the proposed amendments they offered her four minutes of speaking time at the Democratic National Convention, which is four minutes more than Republicans would dedicate to the issue of African Americans’ plight in this country. At least the Democratic Party yields marginal gains from time to time. Being that black people are at the bottom of the financial totem pole, our party preference shifts with whatever party proposes relief from America’s disdain towards us. The Republican Party freed us from slavery and until the New Deal many of us voted Republican. Democratic President Franklin Delano Roosevelt swayed many black people to the Democratic side by signing The New Deal, which offered relief from a Great Depression that placed countless more poor whites in the ring to fight for the few scraps blacks had been fighting for before economic collapse. A Democratic President ushered the Civil Rights Act into fruition, which helped decrease the amount of white Americans terrorizing black people away from exercising their voting rights. Although the Southern Bloc of Democrats, known as the “Solid South,” filibustered the legislation, those Democrats along with their unwillingness to allow black people to vote, began migrating to the Republican Party beginning with their leader Strom Thurmon. The party that freed black slaves gradually became populated with those who advocated slavery.

Racism won Donald Trump the Presidency

Racism underpins Donald Trump’s following. To be able to take one thing, a negative one at that, and secure enough votes to win a presidency is the ultimate white-male privilege and a testament to how much racism really exist in this nation. Think of this: Democrats have to balance a host of minorities’ interests to gain the party’s nomination. Republicans even coined the term, “Identity Politics,” vilifying Democrats who focus on different minority groups’ needs. If they support gay rights, black people get mad, feeling they were in line first. Supporting welfare erodes white male support and bolsters the Republican voter base. It’s a constant balancing act that comes crashing down with one slip of the tongue. Donald Trump, on the other hand, just threw racism up and what stuck was enough to make him the most powerful man in the world. His supporters only had to find ways to rationalize away the racism. They said, “he’s straight forward,” “he’ll run the country like a private business,” “he puts America first.” All these Fox News-driven catch phrases provided cover for these people to elect a racist in reaction to a black presidency.

Hate-Baiting

Negative-quality driving success is a new phenomenon I call “hate-baiting.” Tomi Laren from Fox News is a prime example. Although not a white male, she uses white-male coddling viewpoints to speak to their issues, which stirs tons of negative reactions thereby driving white males to come to her aid in support. Trump’s MAGA movement is no different in that he constantly plays the victim card. He’s the President of the United States yet says he uses Twitter because he “has no voice.” He speaks of violence against police as if more than about fifty of the 800,000+ die each year at the hands of felons, 48 in 2019 to be exact. That’s .0000625%. Based on the statistics and contrary to conventional wisdom, law enforcement is a relatively safe profession but the President ignores police killing unarmed black men and makes a big deal of officers being killed. When people get mad at his obvious bias, white males come to his defense bolstering their resolve to support his ideology. Meanwhile Democrats have to appeal positively to gain support, tiptoeing through the minority minefield hoping the damage they sustained in the primary isn’t too much to prevent them from winning the general election. Running for President in the party that caters to white male interests, the Republican Party, takes vastly less tact. Being that they’ve only taken white males seriously and have never truly entertained the notion of a woman or non-white nominee, we can all say that contending for President as a Republican in today’s politics is an act of white male privilege.