No one wants to
talk about race or racism these days, and yet everyone does. Sometimes it is
subtle, as when someone uses coded language, like how the country is changing. Other times,
it is blatant like the birther movement against President Obama or when David
Duke came out in support of Trump. He told his followers that not voting for
Trump “is basically treason to your heritage.”
Duke claims he did
not endorse Trump, and Trump claims he doesn’t know who David Duke is. For
those who don’t know, Duke was the grand wizard of the KKK and later a one-term
Louisiana state representative.
All the white
supremacist groups are supporting Trump including the League of the South, the
organization I had a brush with and wrote about in my post “Reconstructing the South.”
Watch this video
of neo-confederates protesting ethnic cleansing of… wait for it… white
Americans. Listen to how the protestors place their hopes on Trump to bring
their issues to the national stage. White supremacists love Trump.
Trump, famous for
his brashness, mega-ego, and risky business deals, is working on closing his
next big deal: being elected the leader of the free world.
He sidestepped
questions about supremacist support, because their support is another step
toward that end.
He also quoted
Mussolini in a tweet: “Better to live one day as a lion than 100 years as a
sheep.” When questioned by MSNBC commentator Chuck Todd, about whether he
wanted to be associated with a fascist, Trump responded, “No, I want to be
associated with interesting quotes and people.”
When Mussolini and
Duke are those people, one has to wonder how low he will go, but just look to
his supporters to find the answer.
They are tired of
being politically correct, and they dream of deporting immigrants, excluding
people of color and Muslims, legislating women’s reproductive rights, keeping
gay couples from marrying, and living in a country of only white Christians.
In the meantime
Trump initially refused to disavow David Duke and his supremacist ideas. The
GOP establishment is livid. A few have spoken publicly about voting for Hillary Clinton if Trump becomes their candidate. Yet they used racism as a political recruiting tool
since Nixon. But this blatant show, this naked truth, is too much to bear.
Violence is
another of Trump’s tools to rile his base. In a rally in South Carolina Time
Magazine photographer Chris Morris was choked and slammed onto a table by a
secret service agent for stepping outside the media pen. There are very strict
rules concerning the media at Trump campaign events, because Trump wants to
control media access to his base and rally attendees. It isn’t the first time
someone was attacked at a rally and one can be certain it won’t be the last.
Violence is
something else his base craves. They have attacked Black Lives Matter
protesters and Muslims who attended rallies. Their fervor is palpable.
This past weekend we
saw the film Race about Jesse Owens
and the four gold medals he won at the 1936 Olympics in Nazi Germany. I love
seeing movies like this one that document our history, our true history, but
they always leave me teary and depressed. The promise of reaping a rewarding
career based on being a national hero never seems to materialize for athletes
of color who rose to athletic prominence before the Civil Rights movement.
President
Roosevelt never invited Owens to the White House after the Olympics and the
dinner at the Waldorf Astoria in New York City to honor his feat of winning four
Olympic gold medals was diminished because he was not allowed to enter the
hotel through the front door. He and his wife had to ride the service elevator.
So anything that
Nazi Germany believed about Aryan supremacy was mirrored at home, and was
perhaps even worse, because in Germany Owens and his black teammate Mack Robinson
(Jackie Robinson’s older brother), who won a silver medal, were allowed to room
at the Olympic living quarters with the other athletes.
Sadly, Jesse Owens
struggled to make a living after becoming a national hero. The film said Ohio
State, his alma mater, gave him a job as a janitor after he graduated. That is
not a fact repeated on his Wikipedia page, but in this case, I tend to believe
the film because his daughters were consulted on the making of it.
Did Ohio State
believe they were doing right by offering him a menial job on the campus his athletic feats brought to the world stage?
When I hear Donald
Trump denying any knowledge of who David Duke is (he finally disavowed him), I
feel anger and sadness, because our country has changed so little since 1936.
Civil Rights never reached the true spirit of the law. Systemic racism still
exists because a large portion of America has amnesia, denial of, or fervor for
the different experiences of race in our country – the white experience and the
experience of people of color.
I hoped Trump’s
numbers would drop when he skirted the David Duke association in interviews and
acted as if he did not hear the words “KKK” and “Ku Klux Klan” in a phone
interview this past Sunday. His numbers remain strong. In fact they have risen
nationally.
Even more people
now believe he speaks to their fears and concerns.
The GOP
establishment is freaking out. How to stop him? But they created him. They resuscitated Jim Crow and now they
are paying the price. They should lose this election, soundly, for tapping into
hatred against President Obama; for feeding the growth of the Tea Party; for
speaking out against immigrants and Muslims and women and LGBT individuals; for
pushing for deregulation and corporate welfare. They turned against humanity
and this is the result: irrational anger, hatred, violence, racism, and
discrimination.
I’m disgusted with
the lowbrow attacks the GOP candidates are waging against one another using
middle school sexual innuendo and name calling. But what do they have left when
their base is angry, white, ignorant, and hateful?
Until we take
responsibility and hold our country accountable for its history and the legacy
it has left us, nothing will change and the hatred and discrimination targeted
at minorities will grow wildly and dangerously as it did in Nazi Germany so
many years ago.
What will angry white
Americans think after they elect Donald Trump (or Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio) and he
enacts everything he has threatened: building the wall, shutting down legal
immigration of Muslims, letting even more guns into society? Will they still believe
he is the answer to all their ills? Or will they regret electing the one person
willing to act on their hatred and anger?
Jesse Owens, 1936 Olympics
