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R.I.P. America!
Today, there will be no standard blog post. Instead, this is a very personal message.
In 2008, I volunteered, worked, and traveled with the Barack Obama campaign, because I believed in unity, rights for women, rights for the LGBT community and more. Â That year, the message was clear: “Hope” and “Change.” Â Last night, that message died.
On November 8, 2016, a reality television star with NO political experience, NO foreign policy experience, Â NO knowledge of government or leading a nation, and NO plans or concrete details on what he’d actually do on behalf of the country, became the President-elect of the United States. Stunning!
Last night, 61% said he is not qualified for the presidency. Last night, 63% said he does not have the temperament to be Commander-In-Chief and leader of the free world. However, last night, 55 million Americans voted him into office anyway. Unbelievable!
Last night, Donald Trump did not win. Racism won. Misogyny won. Islamophobia won. Homophobia won. Ignorance prevails.
Today, Hope is dead. Â Health Care for all is dead. Â A fair Supreme Court is dead. Â The advancements of 8 years of the Obama regime is dead.
Rest in peace, America. Â May you reap what you sow. Â The inmates are now running the asylum!
Well I'm coming to the site early today. After hardly any sleep last night I'm up to go to work and face some coworkers who are going to brag about their boy winning. DJ you got it right when you said racism won, misogyny won, islamophobia won, homophobia won. I am totally speechless. Maybe now we can stop pretending racism is dead in this country because it's not.
I'M FUCKING THROUGH WITH AMERICA. SO LONG!
Thurs. Nov. 10th, 2016
After Trump win, Malcolm X’s advice for black people rings truer than ever
Trump won the 2016 election, and much of black America is asking, “What’s next?”
An old interview with the late minister Malcolm X may just have some answers about the best way to move forward.
At a press conference in Cairo in July, 1964, the minister and black nationalist leader spoke about the possibility of electing then-Republican presidential nominee Barry Goldwater. Goldwater would eventually lose in a landslide to Lyndon Baines Johnson.
Malcolm X’s advice to black people facing a Goldwater presidency sounds eerily applicable to today’s election stunner:
"Well if Goldwater ever becomes president one thing his presence in the White House will do, it will make black people in America have to face up to facts probably for the first time in many many years. And this in itself is good in that Goldwater is a man who’s not capable of hiding his racist tendencies.
And at the same time he’s not even capable of pretending to Negroes that he’s their friend.
So this will have the tendency to make the Negro probably for the first time do something to stand on his own feet and solve his own problem instead of putting himself in a position to be misled, misused, exploited by the whites who pose as liberals only for the purpose of getting the support of the Negro.
So in one sense Goldwater’s coming in will awaken the Negro and will probably awaken the entire world more so than the world has been awakened since Hitler."
Isn’t it sobering how history seems to repeat itself? – Natasha S. Alford, writer at The Grio
Thurs. Nov. 10th, 2016
In Chicago this morning a White teacher shares his thoughts with his predominantly Black class of students:
[ Good morning.
78 years ago was Kristallnacht, the “night of broken glass”, where groups lead by Adolph Hitler destroyed Jewish communities. My ten year old grandmother in Prague was terrified. She had heard him speak and witnessed the Hitler Youth march through the streets. While she escaped three days before he invaded her country, many of her relatives did not. Six were killed at Auschwitz, one in Dachau.
I talk to my grandmother a lot. She is someone I turn to for guidance and inspiration, but even she has become discouraged. She told me that she sees “creeping fascism” in Trump’s supporters. Yesterday in Philadelphia, several shop windows were vandalized with swastikas and the words “Sieg Heil 2016”. It is an eerie reminder of our not so distant past.
In the nearly nine years that I have worked with youth, I have never been more at a loss for words. There are no words that can do justice to the valid feelings of terror that many of us are feeling. I don’t know what to say to you to make sense of all of this because nothing can. You might say, “But you’re white, you don’t understand.” And to that I would say that you are absolutely correct.
You may remember two years ago when Eric Garner, the black man who muttered, “I can’t breathe” as he was choked, was killed. On December 3 2014, a jury decided not to indict the officer who put him in that fatal chokehold. I was full of rage, anger, and sadness. I wondered what I would tell my students the next day. How do you hold onto hope when things feel hopeless? How do you continue to fight for justice when it does not exist?
The answer is this- there is no other option. We cannot afford to be complacent. We cannot afford to be silent. We cannot afford to be bystanders when groups that we are not a part of are targeted. During Kristallnacht, many non-Jewish German citizens did nothing. They enabled the violence. We cannot afford to do the same, especially for our African American communities, because it is clear that in the United States in 2016, black lives DON’T matter.
We must stand like we have never stood before for all of our brothers and sisters- black, Latino, Muslim, LGBTQ, and all the communities that Trump and his supports have explicitly and implicitly targeted. Silence is not an option.
For many years during our graduations, our eighth grade students sang “You raise me up.” I am reminded of those words today because it is now all of our duties to raise each other up more than ever before.
For when you fight for justice and equality, when you speak for those who have been targeted, when you reject white supremacy, when you fight for your education and learning of your peers, when you no longer close your eyes at the injustices of the world- when you do these things Scholars, it will be you- who will raise all of us up- to be more than we could ever be. ….]
H/T: BlackAmericaWeb.
This has been the most interesting blog that I have ever had from you to read which has really make me think about it. If we see the today’s condition then it make sense to me.