Why did the people of this country elect a president who is now making so many of us all lose sleep? One answer comes to the forefront: The dominant culture is afraid of losing its traditional dominance. The might of the white might no longer be so tight.
Some put forth economic reasons, saying that workers in the United States (especially white workers in rural areas) are suffering and feeling forgotten, abandoned. That is why they turned to a peculiar hero, a white billionaire, to save them from their maladies. A billionaire? A wolf will save the sheep?
The pussy-grabbing billionaire president tells them that their maladies were caused by the untrustworthy manipulations of a man who was the president of the country before him, for the past eight years—a black man.
More accurately speaking, half black, half white, although in this country, where color blinds us, one drop of black blood makes you a full-blooded black person.
The white billionaire also says that the black president was not working alone on his manipulation of the economy and in his “relaxation” of the borders (never mind that the black president was called “deporter in chief,” for the record number of undocumented immigrants that he sent packing).
Behind that black president, the billionaire and his gang croak, there are hordes of multicolored people, just waiting to change the traditional face of “America.” Multiplying themselves with abandonment, “they” are readying to take charge and obliterate all that has been considered traditionally “American.” This gang points to, for example, the way “they” are taking over baseball, the so-called “American pastime.” And basketball?! Just black black black, everywhere. If there are a few white faces in the basketball teams, they are generally foreign born, not “real Americans.”
Those who voted for the white billionaire did so in spite of the man’s clear incapacity to govern. Why? Well, they admire that he is a “successful” businessman, one who “speaks his mind” and “tells it like it is!” Or, twits it and twists it like he would like us to see it.
I believe that they mainly voted for him because he is a white man. He may lack grace, education and many other virtues, but they still voted for him. He is “one of them” more than “the black guy” ever was.
The above actually reminds me of what Franklin Delano Roosevelt supposedly said about the Nicaraguan dictator Anastacio Somoza in 1939: “He may be a son of a bitch, but he’s our son of a bitch!”
In an essay published in the Nov. 21, 2016 issue of the New Yorker, titled “Mourning for Whiteness,” the African American writer Toni Morrison says: “Under slave laws, the necessity for color rankings was obvious, but in America today, post-civil rights legislation, white people’s conviction of their natural superiority is being lost. Rapidly lost. There are “people of color” everywhere, threatening to erase this long-understood definition of America. And what then? Another black President? A predominantly black Senate? Three black Supreme Court Justices? The threat is frightening.”
It is not only the clear majority of the white working class that voted for the billionaire (twice as many as voted for his opponent, Hillary Clinton) what about other white folks? More educated? Better off?
Among women, 51 percent of white women voted for the pussy grabber! College-educated white people in general gave him a four percent advantage over Clinton.
So, it is not just a lack of education that characterizes those who voted for the Twitterer in Charge. The “bunch of deplorables” is a more complex mix, but one factor seems to unify them: They are mostly white.
What is this phenomenon? A friend of mine characterizes it as “a fear of a darker planet.” A good description. More than an economy-driven reaction, the vote for The Deplorable in Charge is due to a strong cultural anxiety, because the face of America is changing—good grief!
Such anxiety, in a skin-deep society, is both expected and unfortunate. It needs to be examined, confronted and defeated. For the well being of all Americans. Let’s begin with those suffering from that mental tumor: racism.
Right now, everyone is afraid. A lot of white people are afraid of losing their privileges, the historical comfort afforded by the simple fact of having being born of a certain color. They will soon be the minority. Oh, horror of horrors!
But, the redefinition of what is an “American” and the necessary acceptance of that emerging multihued, national persona can be a beautiful new face for all.
People of all colors are simply afraid that we are about to see the end of the world as we know it. Let us hope that the end will not come with multiple atomic explosions or by the sad demise of our planet due to the insensitivity of greed.
The end of that world might, instead, signify the beginning of a new, better world.
We have to start making connections beyond our skin color, beyond our countries of origin, beyond our ideologies. We must establish a necessary, urgent dialogue. Those seated around the table should be an inclusive, multicultural, multi-gender, multi-color congregation.
The goal is not to become color blind, but to not let ourselves be blinded by color.