Just in case you were wondering, all the Black folks voting for Trump, spoke at the RNC last week. Yes, that was all of them! And you can expect their next appearance at a Duke for Senate rally in Louisiana.
Life is pretty complicated for a Black Libertarian right now. This surge of mass hysteria has just brought the worst out of America, and it’s hard to find a friend these days. Most Blacks have an image in their minds of Republicans as Redneck, hood-wearing racists that want to get rid of anyone who isn’t White in America. Let alone that most of us haven’t even heard the term Libertarian, the language of the right leaning media makes it impossible for me to persuade my brothers and sisters otherwise. If I didn’t know any better, I would start to believe it myself.
For reasons not pertinent to this topic I will say that I am wary of the motives of those organizing the #BlackLivesMatter movement. Ok, the most I will say is that some of its most active membership is derived from an ethnically diverse (meaning white female) LGBT activists that have on record, equated Black civil rights with LGBT rights, which I think is off-message from what actual Black folks feel.
But anyway, if I didn’t know any better, I would too believe that the Republican Party was full of bigoted White folks who don’t get it. Why? Well, to understand why, we have to break down the language being used by both sides:
Hands Up, Don’t Shoot- Slogan used first during protests in Ferguson, MO in reference to testimony by witnesses that Michael Brown had his hands up in surrender when Police Officer Darin Wilson shot him to death. The Department of Justice determined that this was not the case. Ignoring this finding by the DOJ, this slogan is still chanted at rallies and protests nationwide. However, the recent shooting of Charles Kinsey, a behavioral therapist who was attempting to de-escalate a standoff between the police and his patient who is an autistic man. Kinsey was recorded being shot after laying on his back, with his hands clearly up in the air. It really doesn’t look good at all.
All Lives Matter– Basically is the antithesis of #BlackLivesMatter (BLM). BLM has been described by almost all employed in right leaning media as being racist in its very existence. The slogan Black Lives Matter became associated with being strictly anti-police, which is a dog whistle to being anti-white. A trend in squashing Black pride had a practice run against #BlackGirlsRock, a campaign designed to foster self esteem in young Black women, in which almost exclusively white folks responded on social media with #WhiteGirlsRock or #AllGirlsRock. On the surface, #AllLivesMatter (ALM) is innocuous, but its supposed inclusiveness is doing nothing less than diminishing the pain and anger felt by millions of Black citizens. This term has been used by anyone in opposition to BLM, and by non-Whites looking for the approval of their White counterparts. Don’t believe me? Yell Black Lives Matter where there’s more salt than pepper and tell me the response you hear.
Blue Lives Matter– In a similar fashion, a response to BLM in light of the assassination of Police Officers after the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castille. This adds more fuel to the machine that will have us all believe that BLM is a campaign against all police. Sheriff David Clarke from Wisconsin, famously shouted this slogan while addressing the RNC and the house exploded with applause.
False Narrative– A trending buzzword used by pundits and journalists, basically a fancy way of saying that BLM or anyone in support of improving relations between police and Blacks/brown Americans is perpetuating a boldfaced lie. Just saying false narrative makes you feel more confident that what you say is absolute truth, not to mention, it’s easy to remember. (Que 30 second montage of people saying false narrative.)
I could go on forever, but I think I got my point across that these phrases have been repeated daily for so long that, depending on where our source of information is, talking points become ideology. I’m going to share a personal story:
During my active duty Navy days, I was watching some news coverage of the nearly forgotten McKinney, TX pool party, where an officer was recorded digging his knees into the back of a skinny, fifteen-year-old Black girl that he body slammed. One of my fellow dirtsailors (It’s a Sea Bee thing, look it up) saw what I was watching and said “Hey, that’s what you get for resisting arrest.” I asked him if he even saw the video and he admitted that he had only heard about it secondhand and came to his conclusion that way. I showed him the video, and then came his change of heart. What he saw disturbed him enough to say that the officer was out of line.
He describes himself as a good ol’ boy from a small town in the Ozarks. He was comfortable in the simplicity of his life; He looks forward to coming home from work and enjoying a few beers, he likes to go fishing and hunts during season. But he then told me that he doesn’t like to acknowledge the unfair treatment of Black people because it complicates his life. He said he was raised to not be racist and to not see color, but I should mention that he was famous in our unit for throwing the n-word around like it was Monopoly money when Black folks were absent. His name calling wasn’t limited to Blacks; I recall personally reprimanding him for speaking disparagingly against people of Middle-Eastern descent. Without a doubt, he doesn’t represent all Whites, but he sure did reveal a hidden world to me.
Fellow Americans, we have been duped into falling for the oldest trick in the book. We have let petty differences take our focus away from guarding liberty for all citizens. White America, I know you are having a tough time right now, but there are well over 46 million Americans who are still fighting to enjoy the entirety of our first amendment rights, not to mention equal protection under the rest of the Constitution. American flavored democracy still has a chance, and it can work if we can vote to keep this nation intact instead of voting to purge all those who scare you.
Fears of a race war or all out civil war! in America have subsided during the two parties’ national conventions, but once the pundits leave Philadelphia, one can guess that more violence is around the corner. We can either work together to heal the root cause of this extremism from either side, or we can throw gas on the fire until we all get burned. The stakes are too high right now for us to act stupidly. I like to think of myself as the voice of reason, but unfortunately, I will not be running as the Third Party Candidate this election cycle.