Black People Need to Wake-up. We’re in a Fight for our Survival.
There’s an op-ed on the NEWSONE website written by a very capable writer, and he was rattling off the multitudes of reasons why folks need to stop telling Black people to settle for a candidate just to beat Trump in 2020. Which in fact, this was the title of the op-ed. Well, I’m here to tell him that he’s full of as much shit as Trump bloviating ad nauseam daily about his ahem…greatness, intelligence, mastery of deal-making (excuse me for a moment, I have something caught in my throat), his being “the chosen one” (a true God Complex) and Jews thinking of him as the King of Israel. It’s painfully obvious this master scribe is floating along in his dimly lit bubble, and doesn’t fully understand what we’re dealing with in this new Trumpian, I wannabe a dictator, a thousand lies a day, dysfunctional reality.
Because I grew up around the military and federal law enforcement, I fully understand the mandate of something or someone being a “clear and present danger”. Trump is a threat to our Democracy, freedoms, national security and our American way of life. We need to stop this march toward authoritarianism in its tracks. We are heading in a dangerous direction that could result in a very real apocalyptic, Handsmaid Tale, doomsday scenario as long as Trump is in the Oval Office, and feels that he is above reproach and untouchable. We are already in a “Constitutional Crisis” and the Mueller Report is literally a blueprint for Congress to start an inquiry into impeachment.
Black people need to look at the BIG picture, instead of looking at this presidential election cycle through the narrow scope of prior, normal presidential elections. Trump is not normal, his administration is not normal, his supporters are rabid, violent and cult-like, the Republicans in Congress have been compromised because of their desire to push through their draconian legislation, and stack the federal courts with right-leaning judges and placing another conservative on the Supreme Court. That will not bode well for anyone in this country but ultra right-wing conservatives and evangelicals. Black people, YES, I’m talking directly to YOU…you must pull off the rose-colored glasses and really understand the threat.
Trump is showing everyone who he is and what he is capable of with his love affair with brutal dictators (Putin, MBS and Kim), and how he’s treating migrants and those defenseless children he has in deplorable conditions. When a dictator comes for one group, they will always find another group of people to hate and if necessary, dispatch. History bears this out. Countries have been destroyed and millions of people murdered under megalomaniacs like Trump. Out of the gate, he came for the Brown people (all Mexicans are murderers, rapists, criminals, etc), he’s going after women (wants to control our bodies and decisions), he came for LBGTQs (transgenders in the military), so what will stop him from coming for us? He’s still vilifying the Central Park 5 and they’ve been exonerated. Black people don’t have the luxury of being apathetic, indifferent, believing and spreading propaganda, not voting, hating candidates and announcing to the world we won’t vote for this one or that one because that’s not our candidate of choice, and we can’t be so blind and entrenched in our positions, to where we pretend that we do.
We are still the most hated and reviled race in this country. Hell, there’s so many preconceived ideas and stereotypes about Blacks in other countries, that when you don’t fit the images of what Europeans have in their heads, they’re blown away and speechless. Allow me to be clear…the very real issues we have now, will not be remedied with four more years of Trump. They will only become worse. As it is, racists feel emboldened to call the police on us for going about our everyday lives. Cops are murdering Black men with wild abandon. This election is not about the individual or their personal feelings, it is about the survival of our race. So we’d better get to those polls and vote down ticket in 2020, no matter who that candidate is if we don’t want to find ourselves in a “back to the future” situation with our 21st century version of Jim Crow or worse.
SYDNEY CHANDLER is a Los Angeles based freelance journalist, essayist, screenwriter and producer. Sydney has written and produced documentaries, features, shorts, TV dramas and comedies. Follow her on Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and Facebook.
