Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. — Maya Angelou Still I Rise
I opened my front door to a small miracle.
Sandwiched humbly between my New Jersey American Water Bill, ( shockingly low since I decided to forego turning on our lawn sprinklers this season.) and a Val-pack envelope busting with coupons from (now struggling) local pizza restaurants & landscaping & tree removal services, were two mail-in ballots from the State of New Jersey.
The first pic is our ballots. The second “To the Colored Men of Voting Age in the Southern States: What a Colored Man Should Do to Vote,” pamphlet circa 1900. Both documents are starkly different yet inseparable.
Many brave and impassioned Americans protested, marched, were arrested, and died working toward voting equality.
In 1963 and 1964, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. brought hundreds of black people to the courthouse in Selma, Alabama to register. A young fiery John Lewis was amongst them. When they were turned away, Dr. King organized and led protests that finally turned the tide of American political opinion.
In 1964 the Twenty-fourth Amendment prohibited the use of poll taxes. In 1965, the Voting Rights Act prohibited literacy or any impediment to vote. Now, you may be thinking to yourself, “And”? It’s 2020, how is this relevant today?
It’s all relative.
It goes back to the interdependence between the observer and the observed, in particular, where each party find his or her or their self relative to the other party is key.
Therefore, acknowledgment of the validity of our unique perspectives as individuals and how those perspectives influence our world views and actions are vital to gain an understanding of one another.
Here’s where White America finds itself at a serious disadvantage. Black Americans MUST learn “whiteness” it’s the medium we navigate daily White people are everywhere, in everything, even Black & Brown spaces, they are the “default” American, the default “human”.
Meanwhile, Black lived experience is an enigma to most whites. Even “good white folk” you think you know us, you know celebrities, or historical figures, which the only color that matters is green at a certain socioeconomic strata in America, well, to a degree of course.
You may have a black friend, but do you really know black people? The benefit of white privilege is you never really have to. Yes, you love Labron, the peanut man from black history month and you saw “Hidden Figures” once. You can be lily-white culturally and do just fine in America, Blacks cannot.
Mass media, children’s books, art, entertainment. It’s all predominantly manufactured by CIS, white, straight males from a CIS, white, straight male perspective and for the consumption of CIS, white, straight males. This is the primary driver of White ignorance and by extension, White supremacy in American society.
We get the appeal of a Donald Trump to White America more than some White people do.
The majority of white Trump supporters believe all the myths of America. Many have been so disillusioned and made so desperate to the point that, the usual targets “the blacks” are used by oligarchs as scapegoats to fan discontent as they rob everyone blind.
Ocean’s eleven on a national scale. Massive misdirection. Airline bailouts while you wait months for a couple of thousand bucks of YOUR taxpayer money.
If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you. — Linden Baines Johnson
This is the heart of The Southern Strategy And Republicans are masters of this craft. Make no mistake. #MAGAade is a hell of a drug. No matter what truth is revealed about #trumptaxes the diehards will fall on swords for him.
Far too many White Americans are indifferent to anything as abstract as truth, justice, or sacrifice for the greater good. But hypothetical “snowflake babies” or a Transgender person using the “wrong” restroom? They will storm State houses for.
More are desperate in this unforced error of an economic downturn, and this makes them extremely dangerous.
Why do you think #blacklivesmatter is controversial and not self-evident? The @GOP is cynically looking to turn this clusterfuck of a pandemic response into a Trump win. If it wasn’t the plan to begin with.
Motive & opportunity. Huge pools of desperate laborers. No benefits or living wages? No OSHA protections? Right to work legislation? They are drooling. Pandemics mean nothing to elites, neither do abortion rights, health care, clean food & water.
They can afford it.
It’s still good to be the king after all.
Scapegoating however is a double edge sword. and deadly in an empire in decline as the U.S. currently is. It breeds hyper-nationalism which is the father of Fascism.
The moral rot at the top in America will eventually destroy America. Look at all the people who think Trump is a hero for stiffing the U.S. treasury of half a billion dollars while he plays golf.
This has happened throughout history to people much more sophisticated and Nation-states far more, civilized, intelligent, and cultured than us, who chose the village idiot as a leader.
Twice*
Arguably the most significant reason why the Weimar Republic failed was the onset of the Great Depression. The economic collapse of 1929 had dire effects on Germany. This resulted in many German voters abandoning their support for mainstream and moderate parties, choosing instead to vote for radical groups.
Sound familiar?
Ignore the parallels between The United States 2020 to the Weimar Republic 1929 at your peril. It CAN and is happening here in real-time. Trump is like a child with a book of matches in this regard.
Flirting with Fascism isn’t another ploy for your shyster lawyers to keep yourself out of prison. You can’t shake the devil’s hand then say, “I was only kidding.” No one man is worth American Democracy as flawed as this current system is.
200,000 dead Americans.
He knew the dangers the whole time and lied every day.
I wrote a letter to Trump Supporters in 2016 before the election here’s an excerpt –
The sad fact is a child born in poverty in the United States will most likely remain poor. Men Like Trump made their money the old fashioned way. They inherited it.
So it follows that because you see yourself as a Millionaire-in-Waiting, you believe “Big Government” will take all your hard-earned Capital Gains money to spend on extravagances like repaving roads, fixing crumbling schools & repairing 100-year-old bridges.
And impose far too many pesky regulations that infringe upon your God-Given Right to eat spoiled food, drink polluted water and breathe foul air. (It’s okay to regulate bedrooms, vaginas & restrooms though)
Remember when Mitt Romney got caught throwing shade at 47% of Americans at that fundraiser? Hate to break it to you, that’s what Men Like Trump think of you. You’ll never be in their Club.
Nothing has changed since I wrote this letter except we may look back fondly at 2020 because it will get far worse.
As a byproduct of 450+ years of abuse and maltreatment, Black Americans have developed a herd immunity to white bullshit.
Particularly regarding Trump and his follower’s rhetoric. When was America ever “Great” for Black people? Post Reconstruction we had a little headway in Tulsa & Rosewood and White People rioted and burned it all down.
I’ll quote an excellent interview in The Salon –
James Baldwin explained why black people typically don’t have midlife crises. Why? Because they do not buy into the myths of America. Black people know that the system in America is rigged. Black people know this when we are children.
By comparison, white people buy into these illusions of meritocracy and individualism and American exceptionalism and similar beliefs.
That is why the highest rates of suicide right now are among middle-aged white men, because they are finally starting to realize that the system does not care about them.
It’s tough when you’re a white man in America being treated like a ni**er
You know where I’m coming from? Isn’t a rhetorical question. It’s the Rosetta Stone of cultural awareness
One could be blindfolded and mistake an elephant’s leg for a tree. It’s trunk for a snake but because you misunderstood the truth of what this being is, doesn’t make an elephant anything other than an elephant. The misperception is on you.
Once you know the truth, your willingness to take the blindfold off, to get the full picture or not, will govern your future actions for good or evil. It’s a choice. As Morpheus said to Neo, in The Matrix, “It’s the difference between knowing the path and walking the path.”
My Afro-Caribbean Perspective
Let me hip you to where I’m coming from.
I was raised by stern but loving, old-school West Indian folk, who because of want for basic necessities at times growing up on a tiny Caribbean Island, took nothing for granted nor at face value with decidedly Afro-Caribbean centered world views.
My great grandparents on both sides were poor. They grew under the yoke of British Colonialism. There were no silver spoons nor inheritances, to get my parents started.
Both my parents were heads of their households, earning money, and supporting younger siblings when they were not much older than my 13-year-old son.
Whatever wealth they had, whatever careers and educational opportunities they possessed, they built from scratch. My parents met, fell in love, married, and made a life in the United States.
Their new lives in the U.S. weren’t easy, but they were from strong folk, My father was in law enforcement, back home, he was a Supervising Customs Officer at Grantley Addams International Airport.
In the U.S. he needed to be a U.S. resident for at least the previous three years for the same job despite years of experience, (an airport is an airport after all). So he worked nights as a watchman until his requirements came through, and had to work his way back up in rank & salary.
My mother was a Registered Nurse and eventually head of a NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) at the hospital I was born in, told me stories growing up about casual racism of the patients in her care.
Growing up in Barbados, she never heard the word “Ni**er” uttered in public furthermore used against her. A Jewish attending physician once made a patent apologize and then he had that patient transferred to a different hospital.
They both were the epitome of “hard-working immigrants”. My older sister, and seven years later, yours truly, were born American and grew up healthy and happy, oblivious to the fact that technically, we were poor. We didn’t feel poor. We didn’t want for much growing up.
We had new clothes for school, went on month-long vacations back home to Barbados every summer, where it seemed my father knew EVERYONE! At the airport, we were whisked through customs like celebrities because most of the Customs Officers on duty were trained by my father.
At home we attended lavish parties hosted by my mother’s nurse friends, almost all were Filipinos. There was a nursing shortage in the U.S. at the time, so many immigrants from excellent schools emigrated here. Why I love Chicken Adobo to this day.
They sent both my sister and I to college. The lives they built for their two children, and by extension, the opportunities that investment helped give their grandchildren was hard-earned and well spent.
They are both gone, and I’m grateful to them for the unconditional love and support they gave me. I’m reminded of their clear-eyed skepticism and fierce tenacity daily, echoes of both those traits I see in their grand children.
I was born in the long hot summer of 68’ amongst the Global turmoil of that time. Which is why I think I’ve developed a revolutionary perspective for history.
The protests of 1968 comprised a worldwide escalation of social conflicts, predominantly characterized by popular rebellions against the military and the bureaucracy.
The most spectacular manifestation of these were the May 1968 protests in France, in which students linked up with wildcat strikes of up to ten million workers, and for a few days the movement seemed capable of overthrowing the government.
In many other countries, struggles against dictatorships, political tensions and authoritarian rule were also marked by protests in 1968, such as the beginning of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, the Tlatelolco massacre in Mexico City, and the escalation of guerrilla warfare against the military dictatorship in Brazil. (Citation Wiki)
These protests marked a turning point for the civil rights movement, which produced revolutionary movements like the Black Panther Party. Mass movements grew not only in the United States but globally by students primarily.
Unfair treatment was debated on the street, in Congress, and in the press much like today. A full fifty years after the Fifteenth Amendment passed, black Americans still found it difficult to vote, especially in the South.”
“What a Colored Man Should Do to Vote”, lists many of the barriers African American voters faced early on. And in 2020, the peril to the voting rights of Sereta & Alex Yarde Sr. grandchildren is real.
There are three major concerns for the franchise of Black Americans I see currently. The Gutting of Section 4 of the Civil Rights Act, Florida’s Amendment 4 and the breaking story of the 2016 Trump campaign data leak, exposing how 3.5 million Black Americans were listed as ‘Deterrence’
Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act
The Supreme Court in June 2013, effectively struck down the heart of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by a 5-to-4 vote, freeing nine states, mostly in the South, to change their election laws without advance federal approval. At the core of the disagreement was whether racial minorities continued to face barriers to voting in states with a history of discrimination.
“Our country has changed,” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote for the majority. “While any racial discrimination in voting is too much, Congress must ensure that the legislation it passes to remedy that problem speaks to current conditions.”
Texas announced shortly after the decision that a voter identification law that had been blocked would go into effect immediately, and that redistricting maps there would no longer need federal approval.
President Obama, a constitutional scholar, whose election as the nation’s first black president was cited by critics of the law as evidence that it was no longer needed, said he was “deeply disappointed” by the ruling.
Imagine. They sighted that the fact Barack Obama was elected President, the law was outdated. Look around. Do you think systemic racism is no longer prevalent in all aspects of American life?
Take that blindfold off. See the elephant. It’s 2020 and it feels like the summer of 68’
The late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg summarized her dissent from the bench, an unusual move, and a sign of deep disagreement. She cited the words of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and said his legacy and the nation’s commitment to justice had been “disserved by today’s decision.”
She said the focus of the Voting Rights Act had properly changed from “first-generation barriers to ballot access” to “second-generation barriers” like racial gerrymandering and laws requiring at-large voting in places with a sizable black minority. She said the law had been effective in thwarting such efforts. We miss her wisdom on the high court today.
FLORIDAS AMENDMENT 4
Florida’s Amendment 4 restored voting rights to as many as 1.4 million felons who had completed their sentences, but then things got complicated. Hundreds of thousands of ex-convicts are still disenfranchised just over a month before the presidential election. You can follow this link to view Leslie Stall’s report on 60 minutes.
https://www.cbsnews.com/video/amendment-4-florida-felony-voting-rights-60-minutes-2020-09-27/
“Deterring Democracy”
A United Kingdoms Channel 4 News investigation revealed a huge Trump campaign data leak, exposing how 3.5 million Black Americans were listed as ‘Deterrence’ – to try to stop them voting in 2016.
Watch the full #DeterringDemocracy investigation by the Channel 4 News Investigations Team here: https://t.co/JOAly3whBI
— Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) September 28, 2020
This was the DCCC data theft no one seemed to talk about. This is how they knew individual wedge issues. This is how they micro-targeted their dark ads on Facebook. Which is why I and others have since dumped Facebook for their complicity.
This violates the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act, &, given that Trump is president, the 15th Amendment to the Constitution which declares that: “The right of citizens… to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States… on account of race, color.
But Congress is too busy trying to get their self-styled Handmaiden jammed through and confirmed on the SCOTUS before the election, for which voting as already started, to ensure Trump can win any contested election result.
This video of Sen. Amy Klobuchar is a must-see –
Black America’s voting franchise hangs by a thread.
My ballot is a pocket miracle.
My ballot is a pocket miracle, because for most of the history of this country. People that look like me, were legally denied the right to cast a ballot. My marriage and the fruits of that union, my son and daughter are as miraculous for the exact same reasons.
Here’s my daughter at school reading a poem she wrote to Lynda Blackmon Lowery. The youngest Selma activist. –
Jojo reading a poem she wrote for #LyndaBlackmonLowery, the youngest person in Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s march from #Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. She was 14-years-old when she set out on her trip, and she celebrated her birthday as an activist. #votingrights # pic.twitter.com/SmCT8Pjtg0
— Alexander Yarde (@thatalexyarde) September 29, 2020
White Supremacy and the institutionalization of racism in America are on the rise again and I have no illusions that hard-fought for rights can’t be taken away in this climate of oligarchs, grifters, and religious zealots.
With White Nationalists entrenched infesting the walls & floorboards of the White House, “the people’s house” Designed by a black architect. Built and rebuilt by enslaved Black People.
My ballot serves as a stark reminder, both how much farther we need to go as a nation, and chillingly, how fragile democracy is and what is every citizen’s shared responsibility to ensure our decedents continue their franchise as Americans.
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Feature image courtesy of the author.