It’s Seriously Perilous To Be Black In ‘Trump’s America’

Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 09:03 pm

*The following is an opinion column by R Muse*

There’s no doubt or debate that Republican standard bearer Donald Trump is responsible for no small number of affronts to human decency on any subject one can think of. However, the fascist is getting a “bum rap” for a couple of things that really aren’t his making, no matter how much it appears to be the case. For example, although Trump’s campaign is founded on nativism and racial animus, two topics he incites as a campaign tactic, he did not create or cultivate that nasty base of support; that is all on the Republican Party.

That being said, there are increasing instances being reported of sheer racism targeting people of color that can be attributed to Trump simply because he is reaping what his Party has sown since Americans elected an African American man as their President. Although the seething racism raging today was always simmering beneath the surface,  as many political observers have noted the Republican Party that Trump leads has made racism not only acceptable, but a popular campaign asset. Subsequently, innocent Americans are increasingly paying the price of living in what many are now calling “Trump’s America.”

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There were three specific cases over the past two days that reveal precisely how acceptable Donald Trump’s hateful rhetoric has made targeting people of color, all people of color, with violence; the calling card of conservatives supporting the fascist Trump. There was once a time, about nine years ago, when a white racist using the pejorative “N” word as a weapon against African Americans in public was considered extremely bad form. Trump and his cabal made that word publicly acceptable among white supremacists with their call for an end to what they errantly called “political correctness.”

It was also once severely frowned upon to publicly call for executing large numbers of people of color simply because they are not white, but with the ascendancy of Donald Trump, those days are history. That atrocity is also down to Republicans, white supremacists, and those particular savages calling themselves “patriots” because they are racists with a well-stocked arsenal of firearms. Actually it is a relatively new development to connect blatant racism and white supremacy with being a real American “patriot,” but an ardent Trump supporter is publicly calling for “fellow patriots” to lock and load and hunt down African Americans, including women and children as they shop or move about their communities.

First, the so-called patriot calling himself “Johnny Infidel” (Jim Stachowiak) released a video inciting deadly violence against Black Lives Matters (BLM) members and the African American community in general. Stachowiak is, predictably an ex-law enforcement officer and is raging angry because African Americans are protesting the unwarranted killing of unarmed African Americans. The fake patriot claims that because he regards BLM members “domestic terrorists” it is up to ‘real American patriots’ to take action including gunning down innocent Black women and children if they are seen coming out of stores in the proximity of protests and demonstrations.

The dirty racist summoned his patriot cohort and issued instructions to the white supremacists clamoring for a reason to gun down African Americans. He said:

I don’t care if they’re women and children, anyone coming out of a store should be shot on site (SIC). They should be shot exiting the stores. If they make it down the street, take their asses out and shoot them in the back.”

In an incident in a city renowned as a progressive and liberal bastion, Portland Oregon, three bothers, no they are really brothers, of Hispanic descent intervened to protect a young African American woman with a small child in tow from a filthy white racist. The bigot, the brothers, and the Black woman were on mass transit from Beaverton to Portland with a load of other passengers who sat quietly while the man screamed at the African-American woman, her godmother and a toddler “You f*cking n*gger!”

The three young men rushed to the woman’s defense and to divert the white racist’s attention away from the mother and child one of them said, “Keep on saying sh*t.” The racist then turned his rage on the 21, 18, and 17 year-old brothers saying, “What the f*ck are you going to do about it,” while swiping at the young man capturing the exchange on his smartphone’s video. The brothers told the man to get off the train and he eventually exited; but not before hurling more racist remarks at the three brothers.

The young men said they refrained from physical violence and considered summoning law enforcement, but decided against involving the police since they watch the news and are aware that not being white in the vicinity of police may be a deadly proposal. This incident was particularly informative because not only did the racist feel comfortable raging at the Black woman, so did the train full of passengers that looked on seemingly amused. Emilio Herrera, the oldest of the brothers, said that what bothered him most of all was that, “Everybody just sat there and watched.”

Earlier this month, an African American firefighter in New York received racist threats on a Monday warning him of dire consequences unless he quit; by Wednesday his home was burned down and his pets burned alive. Firefighter Kenneth Walker received a letter making it clear that since he is the only African American in the department to take the threat telling him to resign or regret it as a racist warning. Mr. Walker found the racist threat in his mailbox and two days later while the family was out a fire destroyed their home, their pets, and all their worldly possessions.

The Gratwick Hose Fire Company Chief, Joseph Sikora, was shocked and said this kind of atrocity is something he never thought he would ever have to deal with. He also spoke highly of Mr. Walker and said that he and the department plans to do everything they can to help one of their own and immediately scheduled fire department-sponsored benefit drives to assist one of his firefighters who lost everything to a racist.

These are just a sampling of the deplorable conditions Donald Trump has incited since he announced his candidacy last year. It would be inaccurate to claim Trump created the blatant racism plaguing America today, but he is taking advantage of it and stoking it to the detriment of people of any color other than white. The real tragedy is that when Trump is no longer controlling every stinking minute of every stinking 24-hour news cycle, every one of his patently racist followers will still exist because no matter the Emancipation Proclamation, Civil Rights Act, or the election of an African American man as President; a fair segment of America is inherently racist and the only solution is unmentionable in the public forum.

Look, there is no hope for a change in attitudes until the current white supremacist segment of the population dies off. Religion is not going to fix it, education cannot fix it, and tolerance training is an abomination much less going to fix it. It is going to be perilous to be a person of color in America for decades and any perceived progress on race that may have happened was veritably wiped out when Donald Trump took advantage of decades of GOP race-baiting and made it the centerpiece of his presidential campaign.



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