(Todd A. Smith)
Make no mistakes about it.
This mess that America, and the world, finds itself in is because many White people had a problem with America electing a Black man as president in 2008.
To many White people, power, wealth and success is reserved for Whites only like the nicer water fountains during the Jim Crow era.
Nevertheless, Black people have always continued to rise despite the racist American caste system.
Therefore, after every major Black advancement, from the Reconstruction era elections of Black politicians to Black Wall Street success that outpaced the success of many White people in early 20th century Tulsa, Okla., Black America has endured extreme White backlash.
The African American Encyclopedia said, “(President Andrew) Johnson offered African Americans nothing [after the abolishment of slavery], but they took the initiative to improve their own lives. They built schools and churches, organized mutual-aid societies, and met in conventions all over the South to demand full rights of citizenship. Perhaps half of the African American population was on the road in 1865, some looking for loved ones taken from them by the slave trade and others moving to the cities in search of work.
“Southern state legislatures organized under Johnson’s Reconstruction program showed their hostility to African American aspirations by passing laws known as the Black Codes. Though the Black Codes granted former slaves the right to legally recognized marriages, their main goal was to limit African American options. In Mississippi, for example, African Americans had to sign year-long contracts as a condition of employment and were forbidden to rent land in rural areas. In South Carolina, African Americans who held any job other than agricultural work or servant had to pay a special tax.”
When the U.S. Congress tried to punish Southern states by refusing to seat newly elected Southern politicians, Southern states responded by punishing the African American population in inhumane ways.
Congress also passed laws that would grant certain rights to African-Americans.
However, former President Johnson vetoed those bills because those legislative measures were not in the best interest of White folks.
Does the sound familiar?
Recently, President Donald Trump said that the Civil Rights Movement, which granted minorities equal rights, led to the mistreatment of White folks.
Therefore, President Trump is saying the same racist things that Johnson said in the late 1800s.
They both said that equal rights for everyone does not benefit White people like discrimination and White privilege does.
Therefore, they both tried to dismantle rights and protections that God gave African-Americans when they were born.
Trump has made it difficult for Black government employees to complain about racism, while making it easier for White employees to claim racial discrimination.
He has made it easier for White South Africans to immigrate to America, while targeting legal Somali and Haitian immigrants.
He has dismantled diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts.
The president’s Supreme Court appointees have dismantled affirmative action.
The two-term president has erased Black history from government websites.
His presidencies have led to young Black children experiencing more racism at school at the hands of their White counterparts.
The current term has seen Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) receive bomb threats after a White man allegedly assassinated far right and racist political leader Charlie Kirk.
Therefore, if racist American politicians reacted the way Johnson did after Black people began making political and economic progress, it was inevitable that President Barack Obama’s eight years in the Oval Office would lead to upset White people who thought they were losing their country.
And angry White people found a lord and savior in Trump.
Furthermore, America poured salt in the wounds of angry White people when it elected Vice President Kamala Harris in 2020.
When that Black woman ran for president, that was way too much for many in White America to handle.
Therefore, the country went back to a president who openly talked about his disdain for the Constitution and his desire to be a dictator.
Now, America has three more years to deal with a deranged lunatic who embarrasses the country on the international stage.
Now, America has three more years of ICE agents dragging near naked American citizens out of their homes in the snow for whatever made-up reason they came up with to justify their gestapo tactics.
America was built on White supremacy, and it will destroy itself with White supremacy.
But White supremacy notwithstanding, I never thought that so many White people who claim to be patriots would vote for a person that is openly attempting to dismantle everything that made America great (it’s democracy and rule of law) all in the name of White supremacy.
What makes matters is worse is that the people really benefitting from the Trump administration are White billionaires, not the poor, rural White folks who would die to keep Trump in power like they did on Jan. 6.
However, that is no different than the poor White person who could not afford to own slaves, but still gave his life during the Civil War to maintain a system of enslavement that did nothing to help his pockets.
Although he did not benefit financially from slavery, the American racial caste system made him feel superior to the Black man, at least.
Likewise, many poor and rural White families benefitted more from former President Obama and former President Joe Biden’s policies.
But Trump’s racism makes them feel better about their Whiteness, even if takes green pieces of paper, featuring White people on it, out of their bank accounts.
Many would rather not having affordable health care or health care at all because it is nicknamed after a Black man.
Now, some of those people find themselves in a real mess.
But it was a mess they volunteered for just to maintain the Whiteness of America.
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