The election of Donald Trump as president of the United States was about a lot of things, not least of which was race.
He openly appealed to people whom he said felt ignored and forgotten. That group was white people, mostly blue collar working men, many rural, some uneducated, but really, the white people who voted for him crossed class and gender lines.
They were white people who “wanted their country back,” and Donald Trump knew it. He actually displayed brilliance in understanding that sentiment and knowing exactly how to tap into it.
He catered to them even as he distanced himself and alienated people of color. His insults of black and brown people enchanted his followers. To their delight, he said what they had said for perhaps decades. Many believed and still believe that America is a white man’s country. Donald Trump was saying it, boldly, crudely and without reserve. He was saying it as they would say it themselves. That he spoke their hearts and explained their spirits was his winning number. He was right when he said he could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue in New York and shoot someone and he would not lose any followers. He was also right when he said what he had created was a movement.
It was and is a movement of racism and hatred. The chickens – i.e., the white supremacists and like-minded people – have come home to roost.
When the Rev. Jeremiah Wright said in a sermon that “America’s chickens have come home to roost,” white people viciously attacked him for spewing hatred. He did nothing of the sort. He merely repeated the course of history – as it is. That is not hatred. That is truth. He said in that sermon that “the stuff we (America) have done overseas is now brought back into our own front yards. Violence begets violence, hatred begets hatred and terrorism begets terrorism.” (https://youtu.be/208t80uceSg)
America’s chickens – the children of white supremacy who vowed that they would get their country back, throwing or attempting to throw the country back to the days of unbridled racism – have made their way front and center. They have resented the progress made by black and brown people; they especially resented President Obama being elected not once, but twice, to the White House. They were so incensed that on the day of President Obama’s first inauguration, Mitch McConnell and other Republican leaders met to plot how they would make his a “one term presidency.” They did not succeed, but they did not stop trying.
The Tea Party was another instance of white backlash. Ostensibly, they formed because they wanted to get rid of the Affordable Care Act, but at the heart of their argument was their racism. This black man was doing what no other sitting president had been able to do: pass health care reform legislation.
Interestingly, politicians and the media criticize people for mentioning or talking about race – but race was always at the center of the Trump campaign – and the media lifted it up. Donald Trump’s base was, the media said, “white, working class men.” The word “white” was first. In analyzing how Trump or Clinton could win the election, the media described what had to happen along racial lines. It was always about race.
So, then, why the hoopla when someone mentions the word “racism?” Both racism and sexism were built into the Constitution of the United States. Racism and sexism are a part of who America is. Slavery was completely racial, the economy of this nation built upon the backs and labor of people of African descent. Slavery, according to Equal Justice Initiative founder Bryan Stevenson, never ended; Stevenson says “it just evolved.” Black and brown people are in prison largely not because they have created violent crimes, but because of the War on Drugs and its allowance for black people to be stopped, frisked, arrested, jailed and incarcerated for non-violent, largely drug offenses, while white people have been largely immune to the same, a fact brought out by Michelle Alexander.
What would happen if America would just say, “OK. You’re right. This is a racist nation?” White supremacy is not isolated to America, either. White supremacy is a world-wide phenomenon. It is a mental illness which has given white people delusions of superiority over everyone who is not white. Admit it. Say it. Own it.
Why? Because all this jibberish about “healing” is just that – jibberish – unless and until the problem or the issue is met head on. Donald Trump has been brash in his rhetoric about so many things. I wish he would be brash and honest (isn’t that what people say they like about him- that he is honest?) about white supremacy. He has the support of white supremacists like David Dukes. Why? Because they are of the same ilk, cut from the same cloth.
Many white people who voted for Trump will say they are not racist. Well, they probably are. Racism, again, is part of the cloth of America. Just because one doesn’t say the “n” word or wear a white sheet doesn’t mean he or she is not racist. All of the gains for people of color will go backward, just like they did when Jim Crow was formed as part of the white backlash against the gains black people made during Reconstruction. White people wanted their country back then, too. They sought to keep black people in their place. Only by fighting, some to the death, for their rights as American citizens, were black people able to get as far as we have today.
Little black children today will not understand what happened to them by the election of Donald Trump, but by the time they are my age, they will have lived what this election was all about – chickens, coming home to roost.
My prayer is that America will stop being so dishonest about the prevalence and toxicity of racism. White people are gloating today, but I wonder just how long a dishonest nation can retain its power and position.
Chickens are running all over the land called America.