[Before I changed my surname to Holmes I was Gonzalez. I immigrated to the U.S. in 1969 when I was 6 years-old. -A. M. Holmes]
If you’ve never felt like crying when you were a child because you didn’t look or act like the other kids and they made fun of you, then you don’t know what White privilege means.
If you’ve never felt angry because the “funny” characters on tv shows and cartoons look and sound a lot like you, then you don’t know what White privilege means.
If you’ve never felt intimated or scared when a stranger, who is White, yells at you; calls you names; threatens you with bodily harm, for no reason other than because of who you are, then you don’t know what White privilege means.
If you’ve never experienced all of the above, then you have no idea what White privilege means or what racism is.
“Trump will attempt to start or buy a media company that can compete with Fox News and do battle with everyone else.” This is what Timothy L. O’Brien wrote in a Bloomberg Opinion article on June 7th, 2020 (https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-06-07/trump-s-ugly-week-reveals-how-he-wants-to-be-remembered). I see this as a strong likelihood because if there has been one constant in the Trump administration it’s that everything centers around him. If you have any doubt of this just remember this, he has publicly referred to himself as “the Chosen One”. His arrogance, his megalomaniacal view of self-worth, lacks any justification. Donald J. Trump is a farce of a man with no substance.
This administration has given us no peace treaty with North Korea or Afghanistan. We have no trade agreements with China, Japan, the European Union (though NAFTA has been tweaked it still cannot be called “NAFTA 2”), or OPEC. “Law and Order” President? No reforms in gun control regulation at any time in the foreseeable future despite the school and public mass shootings. On the global scene, North Korea is still a “rogue” nation, the Taliban is leaving peace talks, and we have no SALT Treaty with Russia. Healthcare? Despite the over 50 attempts to repeal the Affordable Healthcare Act by the GOP, Trump has not come up with a replacement (he does want to make changes to Medicare and Medicaid by allowing coverage through private insurers and cutting government spending). Immigration reform: increase in arrests and still pushing for a costly and mostly inefficient wall (there are alternatives in technology like the use of drones that would be more efficient and less costly).
Then there is what he has done. He has rolled back EPA standards and regulations almost to pre-Obama (even pre-Bush) times benefitting pollution producing industries like coal and petroleum. His Farm Relieve directives he signed to help farmers in the trade tariff war he created with China benefitted mostly the Big Agribusinesses and suppliers than small farms. He has increased funding to the Defense Department which mostly benefitted military manufacturers. Trump has stepped on state’s rights by rolling back interstate commercial transportation taxes. Talking about taxes, he has given tax credits to the wealthy and corporations with the idea that it will get to the regular worker (“trickle-down” has never worked before it will not work now). Oh, and he has bullied, insulted, and threatened everyone who has seen through incredulous scams. I can continue with the other debacles, “Russiagate”, Covid-19, George Floyd Protest, but why? We all saw it. His lack of leadership in any situation is very self-evident.
When November 3rd comes around I want you to remember the last 4 years and ask yourself this, must we allow this petty, shallow, self-gratifying man-child to serve another four more years? I hope your answer is no and that you vote for Joe Biden.
Donald Trump’s June 1st strolled from the White House to the steps of St. John’s Church for a staged photo-op. Moments before Washington D.C. police tear gassed peaceful George Floyd protesters to make way for the president’s entourage of White House administrators, secret service personnel, and chosen media.
Although it is widely thought among Americans that racism is a bad thing it seems to be generally tolerated. It’s kind of like a group of the loudest, most obnoxious people you can think of in a crowded room. Some will distance themselves, “If you don’t pay them the attention they’ll quiet down and go away”. Some will pretend they don’t exist, “Nonsense, there’s no one that loud in here and if there were, what of it? EVERYBODY is noisy.” Others will try to rationalize the whole thing, “Maybe they have a reason to be rude?”. None of this really works against racists and their hate so we are often left with only two courses of action. As a majority, we could shout louder and drown them out or, better yet, throw them out of the room altogether.
This morning I got a Twitter notification from All Revolutions (@RevolutionsCen) about an article from The Atlantic byEd Young (@edyong209 ) where, as he tells it in I Spent Two Years Trying to Fix the Gender Imbalance in My Stories , “I knew that I care about equality, so I deluded myself into thinking that I wasn’t part of the problem”. He had seen how a lot of his articles reflected a gender bias he never intended to portray. Reading this opened my eyes to the fact that even though I claim to be “gender-blind” I wasn’t doing any better. Here I’m thinking I’m a progressive thinking person now to find out I’m as dirty as our misogynist President (I wasn’t aware of Emmanuelle Charpentier, Jennifer Doudna, and CRISPR). I was fooling myself completely. Now I begin to wonder where else has my supposed “blindness” toward gender, race, or ethnicity has misled me to promote instead the same prejudices I have always felt unjust? The article is very enlightening. Also, it has good resource information at the end of it.
Life On a Small Blue World© 