REPUBLICANS, TRUMP, AND AFRICAN AMERICANS

           The most important issue between Republicans and Democrats is and has long been the rights and treatment of African Americans.Ever since Black inhabitants of Africa were brought over here in slavery most of the white citizens have considered them an inferior race of people and have discriminated against them in every possible way. This has given rise to convulsive eruptions in the fabric of America and has polarized the attitudes of its people, particularly on a regional basis. Today, although there may be other issues that separate Liberals and Conservatives, it is the chief underlying cause of conflict between Republicans and Democrats.

            If you look at the root of many of the issues dividing Republicans and Democrats, it is the manner in which the government treats its Black citizens. Take for example healthcare. Republicans hate the Affordable Care Act (ACA) because it smacks of socialism and will increase the taxes of the richest people. But there is also the fact that the biggest beneficiaries of the ACA are African Americans. They are the poorest Americans and as such they benefit from a law that makes it easier for them to get health insurance.
         In a recent article, Kkurt Bardella, a journalist of Korean background, argued that the recent government shutdown was based on Trump's racism.

Many White conservatives think of Black people as lazy, shiftless, stupid parasites who take advantage of the system, who are supported by the government, and who do no work. They think that it is the Whites who work for a living and pay the taxes that support the Blacks. One Senator recently asked why the government should spend money on poor people when they would only use it for “alcohol, booze, and women.” I cannot express how much this attitude disgusts me.

            Conservatives will tell you that in the old days it was the Southern Democrats who were guilty of the most blatant discrimination against African Americans. At one time apartheid in America was carried-out primarily in the South where the preeminent party was the Democrats. They remember that it was Republicans like Everett Dirksen who championed the Civil Rights laws of the 1960s. They seem to forget about Richard Nixon and the “Southern Strategy.” The Southern Strategy began when Nixon and his supporters, following the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. The Board of Education, claimed that school bussing was a violation of State’s Rights and was unconstitutional. This made large numbers of Southern Democrats into Republicans while many liberal Republicans became Democrats.

            Conservatives believed that inserting African Americans into White schools would lower the level of education in the schools and impair the learning of White students. It was as if Whites, particularly in the South, thought the brown skin of African American kids would rub-off on White kids and cause them injury. Even one hundred years after the Civil War, Blacks were still thought of as pariahs.

            As a White person it is hard for me to imagine the mental anguish this bias and bigotry must have caused Black Americans. It is amazing to me that they did not engage in mass revolution against this kind of treatment. Instead, led by men like Martin Luther King, Blacks began a series of peaceful demonstrations and civil disobedience. Today, when subtle forms of bigotry continue to plague African Americans, their demonstrations against such bias are mostly nonviolent. Whites have been outraged by the act of Black football players kneeling, instead of standing, during the playing of the National Anthem. At a time when it might be argued that Blacks have a right to violently oppose the treatment they get from the police, the government, and most Whites, a few of them resort to this pitifully mild form of  protest.

Today the Republican Party seems to be returning to the old days of bias against the African American community. Donald Trump has been elected, in part, by subtly suggesting that he will not support the rights of Blacks and will cut governmental programs that benefit the poor. When White Nationalists and KKK extremists demonstrated in Charlottesville Virginia, Trump said that there were some “fine people” among them. He recently referred to largely Black countries such as Haiti and the African countries as “Shithole countries.” Trump’s supporters are clearly happy about his attitude toward African Americans. Extremist groups like the KKK have come-out strongly in support of Trump.

The North won the Civil War, but a large section of the American People today, particularly in the South, refuse to accept that outcome. They wish that African Americans were still slaves. White people disrespect Blacks every day in small ways and large. Wouldn’t it be a better America if all White people treated African Americans with respect, kindness, and love?  Wouldn’t Martin Luther King want this kind of America?