Open Your Eyes
When the man occupying the Office of the President of the United States of America says to white supremacists, “Boys, stand back and stand by”, it is a threat to my safety, my well-being, my life. This statement incites a return to the violence suffered by Civil Rights activists during my childhood in the 1960s. It is not to be taken as partisan, but as a moral issue inextricably linked to our nation’s shameful and unresolved history.
As a Black woman, I have heard this man intentionally spew venom for years. While some may refer to his comments as dog whistles, to me they are loud, clear, and hateful calls to violence by a person carrying a torch for white supremacy.
The orchestrated outrage over the Black Lives Matter movement and other efforts to affirm the dignity of Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) is a diversionary tactic used by those who are imprisoned in the most primal form of dualistic thinking on which the flawed concept of race is based.
The Republican Party is quick to affirm its connection to President Abraham Lincoln, the author of the Emancipation Proclamation. However, the document was limited in its scope and the struggle to eradicate the legacy of white supremacy continues to this very moment. With President Lyndon Johnson’s work on the Voting Rights Act of 1964 and the Civil Rights Act of 1965, the Democratic Party witnessed an exodus as many of its members with white bodies fled to the GOP to counter moves toward racial justice and equity.
Four years ago, the Republican Party was overtaken by a charlatan with no moral compass – none. He has provided a sanctuary for disgruntled Americans who celebrate and idealize white supremacy as an extreme model of nationalism sanctioned by a fictional whitewashed Jesus. While politicians have courted this group throughout our nation’s history, it is disdainful in the 2st century to see it hailed from the Oval Office.
Any person who has enough influence with white supremacists to tell them, “Boys, stand back and stand by” in response to a request to condemn them is not worthy of serving as President of the United States of America. He has no interest in being President for all the people of this nation, especially those of us who are BIPOC. It is disturbing that so many of my fellow-citizens have discarded their reasoning skills to accept his lies.
My beloved nation is not perfect, but even in my lifetime I have witnessed it advancing closer to the moral arc of the universe towards justice. That arc is interminably long, but we must stay the course.
As many of us look back with incredulity to segregated water fountains as well as the cruelty of genocide and chattel slavery, there are questions as to how it happened. How did a nation espousing equality spiral so far downward into the sewer of hatred? It is happening today for all the world to see as this nation with so much potential is being led by one whose self-interest precedes and deletes any sense of the Common Good.