Opinion: Nothing About Our Race Problem is Left To the Imagination

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Trump leaves nothing to the imagination, including our race problem .

Back in 2016, I suggested that Trump is capable of ethnic cleansing to make America “great again” and people laughed. No one is laughing now and my only regret is being right.

Nothing about our race problem is left to the imagination. As I write, children are being tortured, raped and left to sit in their own feces after their “meal” of a half thawed burrito. They live in cages like lions at the zoo. And it’s because that’s how Donald Trump perceives children with brown skin.

He describes predominantly black communities as infestations and countries governed by black people as “sh*t hole* countries. That’s the occupant of our White House. We know who he is and we knew it when millions voted for him. I’m not saying that everyone who is white is racist, but I will say that everyone who voted for Donald Trump is.

The first time Trump told us who he is was when he established a racist rental policy for his apartment buildings, and later when he took out a full page ad in the New York Times calling for the murder of the Central Park Five. All young black men, all exonerated of charges involving the rape of a white woman.

We knew who Donald Trump was the day he descended from that escalator, his third wife having the first of many Tammy Wynette moments. We saw the racism when he announced his candidacy and used that opportunity to call Mexicans rapists and criminals. I was horrified because I knew who Donald Trump is.

We saw it when Trump responded to Charlottesville by defending the Neo-Nazi thugs as history buffs, there to protect the historic integrity of confederate statues. There was fire in his eyes and passion in his voice when he described Nazis as very fine people. Remember his do over, where he sounded like he was reciting someone else’s words as he talked about the evils of racism. I didn’t believe him and I bet most of you didn’t either. Sure enough the fire was back when he reverted to telling us how wonderful neo-Nazis are.

We’ve suffered under Donald Trump for three years, as media pundits and his long line of surrogates apologized, spun and lied about his bigotry – trying to project it on to the people he targets, or perhaps saying it’s their fault. It’s not that different from saying a rape victim deserved it because she was wearing a mini-skirt.

We knew who he was, and I’ll tell you as much as I wanted Hillary Clinton to win in 2016. I feared that Trump would win. It’s because, America, we have a race problem.

It was evident in Trump’s rhetoric and more so in policies that included a Muslim ban, gun control in predominantly black communities, more head cracking of “trouble making” critics.

While more Americans rejected Trump, the Electoral College stepped into nullify the people’s will and put a demagogue in the White House and now we have a president who incites hatred every day from his twitter feed and with all the power of the presidency.

We never dealt with racism because while black people were beaten to death or near death fighting for the right to vote, white people were worried about the effect of recognizing their humanity on profits – and let’s be real – to the chokehold white people had on political power. Those with the least power among us, could at least point to the black man and say I’m still better off than if I was one of them.

I was a child during the civil rights era, and I looked in horror as violence was being done to black people who sought full and equal citizenship and full and equal opportunity.

And we tried to tell ourselves. They have access to “our” schools and the ballot box now. So, it’s all good. We told ourselves, we let “them” elect Barack Obama, what more do they want?

And in response to the president who rebuilt the economy that Republicans nearly destroyed, we see the smoldering embers of grievance rise up again. When Donald took Melania on their birther tour, I knew he was nuts and I’m sure my readers did too. But how many of us, had this aching feeling in our gut that Donald and his “Einstein visa” wife (I literally couldn’t type that without laughing) would persuade people for who the economy wasn’t improving. How many of those people would be convinced Obama did it, not the corporate greed that bought Republican economic policy. How many of them were convinced that Obama was bad because he bailed out the banks, but didn’t look further to see what would happen if the banks collapsed. I’m not a fan of big banks, but even if I get that if the bank holding my mortgage collapses, so does my life.

And more to the point, I do get that Republicans did this, with the Bush tax break – not Barack Obama.

If we’re honest with ourselves, we’ll see that being left behind in the economic recovery from Republican policies, is in reality a useful fiction. People could shield their racism from exposure by saying the MAGA train is all about helping the people who Obama left behind.

Yeah, Trump is a bit racist, but I have to think of my future. How many people said that as they sold America’s future down the river for a few moments of seeing Trump bash the immigrant, attack John Lewis, incite violence against the Squad and blame Representative Elijah Cummings for the vermin in his son in law’s apartment complexes?

We know who he is and we know that Trump’s racism is reflected in policy. So is every other anti-American trait, such as cozying up to dictators.

Look, we’re torturing children and ending refugee status for brown people. Trump is trying for a race based immigration system, while arguing it’s about merit. He is openly attacking communities and politicians who don’t look like him from the presidential bully pulpit. If you can’t see how far we have strayed from the America we are intended to be, you are part of the problem.
2020 won’t tell us who he is. It will tell us who we are.