A racial narrative has taken shape over the last few months, since the election of Donald Trump, which is not only inaccurate but dangerous to all of us as a united country. The narrative I speak of is that the more than 60 million voters who supported Donald Trump are either white supremacist themselves or they are people willingly supporting racism, sexism, homophobia or Islamophobia. While the visual of my fellow Americans pulling out Klan Robes from under their beds and out of their closets makes for great propaganda it’s not true for the vast majority of his supporters. Instead, Trump voters are our friends, family, neighbors, co-workers and fellow citizens.
As Democrats we have failed to be honest with ourselves about the fact that we lost this election because while we are a party that speaks of opportunity and social justice, the reality is that our party is led by too many smug elites and out of touch liberals who don’t understand the reality of what most Americans are going through regardless of their race. Over the last couple of years when our fellow Americans tried to tell us their concerns we ignored them and cast them with blanket insults and claims that they were all racist and sexist.
Because that is what we do. If someone says something we disagree with, we call them a racist. If they try to engage with us on race but get it wrong, we call them a white supremacist and demand their lives be destroyed. We look down our nose at Trump voters and Republicans in general as being less evolved on these issues while we pontificate on how they just don’t get it about race in America, while we are so enlightened.
I hate to break it to you but many of you liberals have worse issues with race than the Trump voters that you disparage. Liberals, when you are talking to black people about how racist America was to elect Donald Trump, about how “woke you are” and how you won’t allow racism to be “normalized”, I can guarantee they are internally rolling their eyes. Black Americans have stuck with the Democrats because you were the lesser of two evils not because we saw you as the saviors you imagine yourselves to be.
I’m asking that you stop making Black America your racial props to give your complaints credibility. If you cared about our community like you say you do, we would be talking about all the mostly black people shot and killed in Chicago this year and in all the other cities around this country. We would be talking about a national response to this crisis and finding real solutions. How can a city run by Liberal Democrats have almost as many people killed over the last eight years as Americans died in the Iraq War during the presidency of George Bush? I sure in the hell didn’t vote for Donald Trump but he was one of the few major figures on either side of the aisle that was willing to discuss the issue of these high Chicago deaths and violence in the inner cities of this country. Was he playing politics by talking about these issues? Of course he was. But weren’t the Democrats playing politics by NOT talking about these issues?
Forget “normalizing racism” how about the fact that we have “normalized” the murders of an entire generation of black young men and our unwillingness to do anything about it because it would make Democrats look bad or simply because we don’t care enough to do anything about it.
Liberals were successful in demanding that corporations boycott North Carolina over the bathroom use for transgender individuals and took to the streets and courtrooms against the Muslim Ban (communities that I support), but where was that same passion in calling for boycotting cities that fail to have laws to protect Black Americans? When there were questionable shootings by police or rogue citizens and we couldn’t get an indictment, I don’t remember calls of boycotts by our liberal allies. When many of our schools are failing, thus trapping black children in a continuing cycle of generational poverty, all we can do is argue for the status quo rather than calling for meaningful change.
The collective hysteria that has infected those of us on the Left has been stunning and unprecedented. To be clear I am a lifelong Democrat and an African-American attorney who for the vast majority of my adult life would have proudly proclaimed myself a Liberal. If you ask me where I stand on the vast majority of my party’s positions I would pass most every litmus test. The problem is that as Democrats we weren’t supposed to have any litmus test. We were supposed to be the party of free speech, live and let live and the broader tent. We as Democrats didn’t stick our nose in people’s bedrooms or personal lives. We were passionate advocates who believed we had better ideas, but were happy to engage the other side. All of that is out the window now as we first check to see if you have your mind right on the issues and if you don’t we will bully you or boycott you until you see things the right way. This is an untenable position for me and one I can’t support. Manipulating real racial problems to intimidate others just because they don’t share your opinion on issues such as healthcare is exploitative of the same minority groups you claim to support.
The stoking of a race war because you lost an election and have decided to exploit the very real racial concerns that people of color have is not only irresponsible but downright dangerous. A black person’s ability to survive and succeed in this country is directly related to their ability to work and positively interact with White America. In your anger you have encouraged the dissolving of friendships and relationships between people of different political backgrounds and races as a way of preserving your power without regard to the fact that relationships are how you increase diversity and reduce discrimination. People knowing each other is a positive. You’re trying to tear us apart when your lives, workplaces, neighborhoods and friendships are no more diverse than the Trump voters that you call Nazi’s and white supremacists.
What really scares me is not what Donald Trump will do to black people, but what happens to my community if the government continues to do nothing. We have been sold the lie that things aren’t so bad for Black America because of President Obama and the Democrats. While I am incredibly proud of President Obama and his family as powerful symbols of black excellence, I am not happy with the outcome for my community during his presidency. Because symbols don’t close the education gap, wealth gap, or fix the reality that because of mass incarceration there are more black men in prison than were enslaved in 1850. Barack and Michelle Obama will become historical figures, their kids will continue to go to the best schools and will have access to the highest levels of power. Their family will be fine but what about your family? Symbols can’t feed your family, provide a safe community or a good education. We love the symbolism of the first black president but what are we doing as a party to make sure black kids have the opportunity to become president of the student council, president of their own small business or a CEO of a Fortune 500 company.
As painful as it is for me to write, Donald Trump was right about the lack of job opportunities in African-American communities and that we have failed to provide too many black children the opportunities to receive the type of education that they need to be competitive in this global world. Too many of our communities are victimized by violence and we have been taken for granted by too many Democratic politicians. How is it that this Republican man who is seen by many as a white supremacist is more willing to speak about issues of importance to African-Americans than many Liberal Democrats? Now these problems didn’t just happen solely because of Democrats, but also because of the lack of interest on the parts of Republican politicians and their unwillingness to provide needed resources to communities that are failing. But we also must be honest that many of our urban cities are run by Democrats, so the buck has to stop with them. Many in my community will say that things aren’t that bad, that he is exaggerating and his criticism of black America is for the benefit of his majority white audience. The critics of Donald Trump are correct that the story of Black America is much more complicated than just saying we all live in the inner city or in crime infested communities. Many of us have found significant success, but for too many of us we are over-represented in the numbers of people who live in poverty and it’s an important issue that needs to be addressed.
I have decided that I am less interested in ideology and more concerned with impact. While many of my fellow Democrats have passionately discussed “resisting” Donald Trump and attacking anyone that they perceive to be giving him credibility or normalizing his behavior, this is not a realistic position at least for my community. He is President of the United States and my community doesn’t have the luxury of waiting four or eight years for him to leave office to address our issues.
Does resisting him mean not working for the federal government, because the truth is that some of the wealthiest black communities in the country are populated by significant numbers of people who either work for the federal government or earn a significant portion of their business income from government contracts? Does resisting him mean not discussing the fact that while many blacks have made significant strides in educational attainment we have twice the unemployment rate of white Americans, even those with less education than we have? Does resisting him mean we continue to ignore the reality of entire generations of black men being killed or imprisoned and what that means for the state of the black family? So unless the Democratic resistance is willing to hire all of these black people or actually fix these very real and longstanding issues in my community, resisting is a privilege that many of us don’t have.
So when I read your social media posts about standing against hate, bigotry and fighting Donald Trump, and you tell cute anecdotes about how you were kind to a Syrian Refugee or hugged a black woman on the street to tell her you felt her pain and you use it as an opportunity for virtue signalling about what a good person you are, I am less than impressed. If you want to truly do something that is worth more than a Facebook like, tell me about the kid you mentored, or the person of color that your hired at a fair wage. Colleges are becoming sanctuary campuses but if you want to have a real impact on black and brown students maybe you should think about hiring more professors of color. Ask yourself if the things you are doing and saying is about making you feel better or about really improving the quality of life of disenfranchised people in this country.