Photo from the internet by hislife.style
I’ve seen a lot of politics in my time. But this week has to take the cake. I’ve never seen two candidates for the office of president play the “I am blacker than you card.” A summary of the past week comes down to Donald Trump trying to prove to white people that he is blacker than Hillary Clinton. While Clinton puts on a good display of her own to prove that she is indeed blacker than Trump.
And if the American people thought that her husband, Bill Clinton, was the first Black president, just wait, based on this week’s rhetoric, Hillary is even blacker than Bill ever thought he was. Given the tenor of her push-back this week, we might as well go ahead and proclaim, Hillary, should she win in November, as the first Black women to become president.
My head has been in a spin all week. Just when I think Trump has milked the blacker than you card, he comes out with another bombastic round of insults to prove that Clinton does not have any blacker than thou bonafides.
With all of this campaign hot air, one would think that both candidates had a blue-ribbon plan to ease the suffering of people who are, skin tone wise, blacker than the both of them on their best summer tan days.
If I had not lived in this country the last eight years, I would have a difficult time believing that Barack Obama, a Black man, was ever president. These two candidates are trying to out black obama.
I’ve been waiting to hear Trump lay out a plan to build up impoverished neighborhoods for people who are blacker than blue. Or to hear Clinton’s proposals for shoring up the nation’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Where is the Trump plan to make black neighbors safe from crime? How does Clinton propose to end homelessness in the major urban centers in the country, where many of the homeless are black men, women and children.
While the Black Bourgeois snarls at Trump for openingly asking for the Black vote, I’m getting a wee bit nauseated because both Trump and Clinton are disrespecting the pain that Black people suffer from the callous manifestation of racism and bigotry on a daily basis. Racism and bigotry is not a 30 second sound bit for Americans of African descent. It is an inescapable reality.
Seemingly, all that Trump and Clinton want to do is pontificate about who is blacker, but neither has any interest in resolving the issues which cause the problem in the first place.
Enough of this blacker than thou posturing!
Photo: Jill Stein 2016 Campaign
Meanwhile, out of the view of the evening news, Dr. Jill Stein proposes to convene a “Truth and Reconciliation Commission” based on the South African model. Stein, a medical doctor, knows the condition of enslavement has caused some deep-seated mental illness, for both white and Black Americans. She knows that the nation must come to grips with the effects of enslavement, that has fester since 1619, when a ship docked in Jamestown, Virginia, dropping off human cargo, whose black lives did not matter, if we are ever to deal with racism and bigotry.
We cannot hear Stein’s voice of reason, or fill her prescription for racism and bigotry because the national news sources would rather spend a week broadcasting Trump and Clinton trading insults back and forth over who is blacker. The truth be told, neither one of them really gives a flip about the conditions of poor Black people. In their quest to become president, Trump and Clinton have made a mockery of the U. S. Presidency. Both have behaved utterly unprofessional and trashy on the campaign trail. Behavior so unbecoming a president, that it would cause either of my grandparents, if they were alive, and it was lawful, to take an old-fashion hickory stick to their backsides.
Harold Michael Harvey is an American novelist and essayist, the author of Paper puzzle and Justice in the Round; and the host of Beyond the Law with Harold Michael Harvey. He can be contacted at haroldmichaelharvey.com.
Why are we waiting for someone else to solve our problems? It is FEAR that keep us in place nothing else. Most people are afraid to be all that they can be because they are afraid of failure. So let’s get that fear out of the way and team up with a few people in the neighborhood and watch strange thing happen. Then others will follow.