(ThyBlackMan.com) Breaking news: President Donald Trump uses profanity.
When Trump’s apparent use of the word “s—hole” makes headlines, one cannot help but recall the analysis of the media provided by President Obama’s deputy national security adviser and foreign policy speechwriter. In discussing his perception of reporters’ ignorance of foreign affairs, Ben Rhodes said: “Most of the outlets are reporting on world events from Washington. The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old, and their only reporting experience consists of being around political campaigns. That’s a sea change. They literally know nothing.”
Presidents curse.
President Lyndon Baines Johnson taped himself cursing and using racial epithets. President Richard Nixon taped himself cursing, using racial epithets and making anti-Semitic comments. Then-presidential candidate George W. Bush was caught on a hot mic calling reporter Adam Clymer a “major-league a–hole from The New York Times.” Former ABC reporter Ann Compton says that on at least two occasions, President Barack Obama launched into off-the-record “tirades” against the media. In one case, Compton described the President’s scolding as “profanity laced.”
But in Trump’s case, critics claim his recent use of profanity corroborates, underscores and advances the narrative that the President is “racist.” Here’s what happened. In a “bi-partisan” White House discussion about the immigration debate, Trump reportedly referred to Haiti and African countries as “s—holes,” and wondered why America takes in more immigrants from Africa than from countries like Norway.
Out came the pitchforks. One Democrat, Texas Rep. Al Green, not only pronounced the President “racist,” but says that his alleged racism constitutes grounds for impeachment, apart from the findings of the special counsel.
What about President Obama?
He, too, made a Trump-like statement about the cultural superiority of one group over another. In April 2016, The Atlantic published an article about President Obama’s foreign policy challenges, a frustrated Obama complained about the difficulty of achieving peace in the Middle East. Obama said, “If only everyone [in the Middle East] could be like Scandinavians, this [achieving peace] would all be easy.”
Note to Rep. Green: Norway is Scandinavian country. Again, Obama madethe same point as did Trump — yet no one called Obama “racist.”
Obama also called Libya, an African country, a “s— show” following his admittedly failed military intervention in 2011. He blamed its tribal divisions: “The degree of tribal division in Libya was greater than our analysts had expected. And our ability to have any kind of structure there that we could interact with and start training and start providing resources broke down very quickly.”
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham used harsh language in describing countries to our south. Graham, in 2013, said: “The people coming across the southern border live in hellholes. They don’t like that. They want to come here. Our problem is we can’t have everybody in the world who lives in a hellhole come to America.” Where were the racism-watchers then?
Few Trump-haters appear to have read “The Dark Side of Camelot” by former New York Times writer Seymour Hersh. He writes that President John F. Kennedy was warned about a wealthy, high-profile Democrat, who not only supported another candidate but tried to get evidence of Kennedy’s alleged extra-marital liaisons. Later, when some Senators pushed for a high-profile ambassadorship for this Democratic donor, Kennedy did not forget. “I’m going to f— him,” Kennedy said. “I’m going to send him to one of those boogie republics in Central Africa.” “Boogie republics” does not sound like a term of endearment.
Then there’s Kennedy’s treatment of Sammy Davis Jr. The gifted singer/actor/dancer/musician/comedian campaigned hard for JFK in the 1960 presidential race, and even postponed his wedding to a white actress until after the election. Davis feared his marriage might alienate voters who disapproved of interracial marriage, so he waited until after Kennedy won to get married. But after Kennedy got elected, the newly married Sammy was uninvited to Kennedy’s inauguration, to appease those offended by the high-profile marriage.
As for Donald Trump’s “racism,” he must be putting forth policies to harm blacks, right? But Trump seeks to empower urban parents through education vouchers so that parents can opt out of an underperforming public school. Trump wants to stop illegal immigration. Economists like Harvard’s Jorge Borjas claim that urban American workers without high school diplomas face competition for jobs against unskilled illegal workers, who also put downward pressure on the wages of these U.S. workers.
In an era where activists unfairly brand police as racist profilers, Trumps supports the cops. The bogus Black Lives Matter movement has caused an increase in murder and other types of violent crime in cities like St. Louis, (right outside Ferguson) and Baltimore. The victims of this increased crime are disproportionately black — the very people the activists purport to care about. In one year of the Trump administration, blacks have seen an increase in the labor force participation rate and blacks are enjoying record low levels of unemployment.
If Donald Trump wants to practice racism, his incompetence has been staggering.
Written By Larry Elder
Official website; http://www.larryelder.com
Calling For a Twenty-First Century Civil Rights Paradigm Based Upon African American Brain Power;
Historical black colleges and universities cannot educate effective scholars if it doesn’t teach credible methods of investigating objectified nature. All methods of investigating things outside of ourselves are firmly rooted in the study of philosophy. Indeed, empirical science itself is a child of philosophy. The African American is both cognitive and physical. Let us use the collective knowledge and wisdom we have amassed to create and utilize a twenty-first century civil rights paradigm incorporating global sophisticated technology communication modes.
Very little attention is being paid to the implied political and social meanings of voters who elected President Trump, and in the shifts in individual freedoms for African Americans under a Trump administration. There is a republican majority in congress that basically agrees with Trump’s political thoughts. African Americans must use their collective brain power to fight racial discrimination in the twenty-first century and beyond.
Civil Rights leaders in America aren’t being proactive enough in the face of President Trump’s eminent threat to the basic freedoms of African American citizens.
The fruits of the combined efforts of M.L. King, Jr. and other civil rights leaders have been a more educated and enlightened African American who is capable of conceptualizing a better future for African Americans than what is being delivered. Today we see black experts on television offering their opinions on all kinds of subjects. The proofs of African American intellectualism are staring us in the face daily.
President Trump is a pragmatist who believes in an unequal distribution of goods and services based on merit. The African American merits continued appreciation as a first class citizen.
There should be a stimulation of though concerning African American survival. The minds of the academics are the first minds to stimulate and encourage to help conceptualize a new twenty-first century civil rights paradigm which includes the thoughts of those black citizens who have benefited most by the civil rights movement began many years ago coupled with the widespread usage of sophisticated technologies and modes of communication. The African American modes of communication should be intellectually motivating for all Americans.
Dr. King was a well educated effective philosopher who practiced Socratic method mingled with his theological orientations in an attempt at changing some of the thoughts of many American citizens when it came to the acceptance of the descendants of African chattel slaves as first class American citizens. Dr. King exhibited an extraordinary understanding of how to learn through the usage of western European conceptual pedagogy and he focused that learning on the racist factions of American citizenry. Dr. King was an expert orator using a form of the English language together with effective time honored meters and scansion to persuade the audience to see things his way. Overall, Dr, King was able to harness the energies of education, and world theologies to bring the citizens of America closer together as a nation despite the continued resistance of many.
It is a bit of inaccurate western European boasting to assert an absence of Afrocentric thought relative to the overall evolution of what we call science today ( i.e. empirical science or the science of sense impression ), especially in light of the anthropological and archeological proofs presented that clearly reveal that the oldest bones on earth were found in Africa. The evolution of African thought (i.e. dealing with objectified nature) includes that of the ancient Egyptians whose symbolic forms of communication, or their writings encompass a basic understanding of the existence of things outside of themselves. The air and gamma rays are represented by their beliefs that certain gods gave air to breathe, and healthful and healing rays emanating from the sun. The Egyptians clearly demonstrated an understanding of the existence of a micro, and macro worlds. For any scientist to assert that African thought does not found a basis for contemporary empirical science aren’t demonstrating a full knowledge of the evolution of empirical science today. The atom smashers of today are still following the sub-atomic tell-tale imprints of nature’s seemingly infinite retraction from one conceptually identified thing to another completely dispelling the existence of a nihilistic philosophy ( i.e. ex nihilo nihil fit ) and affirming ex aliquo aliquid fit ( i.e. from something something comes ). The western world has very little use for a science that doesn’t produce things that mankind can use thus empirical science or the science of sense impressions proceeds through experimentation and observations as hypothesis to theory to law.We value things and many of the things that we value from medicines to automobiles have been created via this kind of inquiry into objectified nature.Empiricism proceeds from a basic “ex aliquo aliquid fit” assumption that “from something something comes”, and a seeming silence by African Americans doesn’t necessarily mean that we are silent on the subject and are not practicing a scientific skepticism of contemporary scientific methodology. African Americans question and also doubt much of the fruits of empirical science. It is this kind of doubt that continues research into the wise usage of many of our inventions even after their creation and reproduction have met the stringent test of being established as scientific law.
There is nothing having to do with an American scientific practice that is not a priori or a posteriori of western European origin from the Pre-Socrates to contemporary empirical scientific practices. The whole of American scientific endeavors is nothing more than a continuation of Western European scientific methodology inquiries into the nature of things. All scientific discoveries stemming from the practice of empiricism in America belong to Western European science derived from Western European thinkers. Our technologies in total do not deviate from this basic empirical science epistemological premise from our atom smashers, to our cell phones, to our rocket ships, to our sophisticated telescopes in outer space. There is no need for a new science, and it is doubtful that we can ever break with the course of our existing science. Existing scientific practices will answer, or has answered all questions. Given the power of our science, why don’t we have a unified field theory in all disciplines, especially genetics and medicine? If we can postulate, and act upon a premise that man is nothing more than a collection of sub-atomic particles temporarily suspended in three dimensional space, plus the axis of time, why can’t we speak competently to how we dovetail with the rest of the universe? When we investigate that which is presently investigable both microscopically and macroscopically in nature, we see unity of energetic purpose. There is a relationship of the parts to the whole. Everything works together to keep the universe from flying apart. We have not properly applied this scientific knowledge to improve the longevity of mankind in this environment.
The contemporary African American skeptic concerns himself with both worldly and other-worldly thoughts. Worldly thought concerns itself with the career of the human body. Other worldly thought concerns itself with the career of the immortal soul. Such thoughts contend that god is the ruler of the world, theological thought puts forth that the body is weak and destructible, and the soul is immortal. We do not get to this understanding of self through a strict set of reasoning, but by being told through theological discussions. We know the world outside of ourselves through our five senses. There is nothing in mind that was not first in senses.Religion requires that we perform the “leap of faith” to arrive at some understanding of the will of god. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen.” This paradoxical mingling of logic and illogical gives us a way of understanding and accepting supposedly what goes on outside of self that is detectable by our senses.
Faith in a god who promises his rewards in heaven is other-worldly and empirical science is slowly pushing this kind of thought further and further out into infinity as our powerful tools used to investigate objectified nature reveal more and more of that which was outside of normal sense observations. We are finding that nothing is fixed, nothing is truly determined, and everything is relative. The African American skeptic is asked to accept the premise that he is born into a determined world where he must suffer. The skeptic must doubt and push back against the basic premise of a determined world and his present place in it. Skeptic thought, meaning the connecting of ideas that challenge the contemporary, takes us to another place. Skepticism calls us to practice a critical philosophy on what we think, how we act, and how we are treated. Skepticism takes us to the realization that racism is an illogical act and poverty an illogical condition. We must be skeptics when it comes to all modes of thought that condemns us to perpetual suffering and racism, doubt its authenticity, and its reality. Condemn it as flawed thought, and move on into a better future.
Every religion lays its claim to the one sensorial perceived reality — the reality that can be seen, smelled, tasted, touched and heard. The religious believer comes to this conclusion not by any contemporary system on rationale, but by virtue of his faith.
The King James Version of the Holy Bible defines faith as the “substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen.” Therefore the hold religions have on humans is a strong one that precedes any influences of science. It is little wonder then that there are more religious folk than scientific ones, because religion was first to define reality for mankind.
Some parents still tell their children to “sit still while it’s thundering and lightning because God is doing his work.” They do not explain the events of the thunderstorm as processes of planetary hydrology. Instead it is God working his wonders.
Politicians all over the world are quickly realizing the power religion has over the thoughts and behaviors of their citizens. Citizens of differing countries, heavily influenced by religion, are in the streets killing people and destroying property all the while openly proclaiming that their god is greater than another person’s god.
None of them are free thinkers because they cannot escape their archaic thoughts dating back to the times of crude drawings on cave walls. How can anyone declare himself a free being when all of his thoughts about his perceived reality are defined through the curtailing strictures of a religion?
Religions, as life paradigms, find their true purposes only as modes of thought seeking resolution of our fear of the unknown. Religious thoughts help to springboard us toward a greater understanding of the universe, but they are not an end unto themselves because they leave too much about mankind’s connection with the rest of existence unanswered.
Situating one’s life solely within the confines of any religion hinders our intellectual growth. Being religious may be contemporarily popular for some as a means of seeking and finding answers to questions about the problems plaguing mankind today, but we are not free when we must bow down. We are not free when we must get on our knees.
Let me into your house and I will tell you what you value because no one takes anything onto themselves that they do not value. Every item in your house says something about your value system. President Trump does not value religion. He is of the enlightened. He values sophisticated technology. He is using religion to divide our society, and turn certain religious groups against each other. It is up to the citizens of America not to become entangled in internal, and external religious wars that masks a secret agenda. The grip that religion has on the minds of citizens all over the world is profound, and thoroughly unreasonable. It’s ironic, people who believe in a god ride to war driving vehicles powered by scientifically designed internal combustion engines. Warring factions blow each other to pieces using weaponry calibrated by computed physics, and seek to heal themselves from the terrible they inflict upon themselves using medicines derived from the same science. They fly through the air in airplanes conceptualized by scientist who, as a group who study perceivable phenomenon, are presently using atom smashers to help develop a unified field theory. Dr. Albert Einstein overthrew nature proving his theories of relativity, and of special relativity, and yet, today, we must defend ourselves from religious fanatics. These are the kinds of voter support evangelicals promise to deliver to a particular political candidate all the while claiming a non-existent separation of church and state. Most evangelicals are not elected officials. They don’t deserve the power over the political process that they have. How did they get so much political power? They used human ignorance, fear, and a human need for a god to get it. Politicians go to them to get votes from their congregations which preachers often refer to as sheep. The constitution of the United States of America is under attack by religious zealots of all persuasions. Contemporary political candidates are not defending the constitutional integrity of a “separation of church and state “instead, politicians seek evangelicals’ blessings. The results is what we see today, a horror show of prospective political office holders courting evangelicals for votes. Religion is the greatest tool of political conservatism in use today.
What is an American? An American is a citizen of the United States.
African-Americans were not always citizens of the United States. They were chattel slaves and then citizens. African-Americans haven’t mastered being American citizens. We haven’t mastered it because we haven’t practiced it enough. This is why so many are still burdens on federal, state and local governments.
It is not enough just to say that we celebrate Black History Month each year and then recall the good deeds done by a few African-Americans of the past.Doing this robs those who haven’t given enough thought about the damaging effects centuries of forced slavery and racial segregation a full view of the psychological and physical damages done to a percentage of our population.
America will be a better country if we can heal these few sore areas in our society. I am all for reparations being paid to African-Americans for the harm that has been done as a result of chattel slavery. Perhaps many will be able to use this money to recover from their psychological and physical sicknesses.
African-Americans cannot find a way to thrive en mass in America because too many of us are still sick. White Americans expect too much of African-Americans when they harbor the impression that a few hundred years are enough time for African-Americans to recover. Being an African-American today is a quiet form of personal suffering masked by the pretense of well-being that hides a continual feeling of inadequacy.
We suffer because we cannot support ourselves financially. We suffer because we don’t know how to love one another. We suffer because we don’t know what foods to eat that are good for us. African-Americans feel inadequate because there are gaps in our social evolution. Our ethics are a mixture of chattel slave and free man.
The African-American’s movement from a slave to a free citizen wasn’t a smooth one. It was marked with bitter strife and suffering that can only be helped by genuine acceptance by their white-skinned citizens. It is important for a white-skinned mother or father to smile and cuddle a black-skinned baby and vise versa because racial acceptance is part of the healing process. The white-skinned citizen should expect the same good-citizen conduct out of African-Americans as he would his own child.
We have been put together racially by laws in America, but not yet enough by a sense of pride in nation and citizenship. We must all work together to create a kind of American society yet in privation. This new, better citizenship is within our grasp.The whole of Dr. King’s dream is not yet made manifest in our day-today lives.
It is a vision that is greater than any one of us, but is obtainable through the efforts of all of us. We will all know when things are better racially in America when the matter of race is a non-issue in all that we do.
The greatest challenges facing African-Americans today are centered on the
problems of being (existence) and axiology (knowledge of values).
African-Americans must completely shed their old inherited chattel slavish
cocoon of being in order to fully embrace and value their existences as
American citizens. America must support and build upon ways to deliver the
African-American as a whole being, not a broken one, into mental and physical
freedom as autonomous beings hundreds of years after the nihilistic
psychological and physical damages of chattel slavery.
African-Americans must put on a new being by fully accepting what we have
become, which is nothing less than a fusion of Eastern world ancestry and
Western world existence. America should be proud of the fact that
African-Americans are living beings who are proving through their very
existences that it is possible to fuse Eastern and Western thought into a
viable, useful citizen.
African-Americans are the living, breathing prototypes of human evolutional
change possibilities in contemporary America. Men like G.W. Carver, W.E.B.
Dubois and M.L. King Jr. all helped point the way toward true white American
and African-American reconciliation, and the African-American’s liberating
sense of self, and subsequent real freedom.
African-American epistemology (the study of knowledge ) and aesthetics
(expressions of beauty) are firmly rooted in Western thought, a way of
thinking that once enslaved our ancestors and has now set us free, but this
has been a partial freedom thus far which has freed the body much more than
the mind. Many African-Americans still haven’t developed a clear definition of
their being that is consistent with existing as a good citizen, as evidenced
by too many of us being either incarcerated or not living up to our fullest
potentials in America.
Partial confusion still exists because many African Americans have inherited
and still carry confusion as a result of our ancestors being psychologically
and physically unmade as beings, and remade through selective breeding and
harsh punishments by ancestral slaveholders. Most African-American ancestors
were psychologically and physically broken down and then remade in an image
created by their captors who, in fact, forced Western thought upon Eastern
enslaved Africans.
Some African-Americans still struggle against Western thought, choosing to try
to replace it with other non-Eurocentric systems of logic. Much of the results
of this process over time are African-Americans who do not necessarily
identify with Africa at all, and are cut adrift psychologically when it comes
to a sense of self. They are isolated from America’s mainstream.
Too many African-Americans remain mystified by the whole of Western thought,
which is the root of contemporary American thought. Many cannot decipher the
signs and symbols of a Eurocentric or Afrocentric logical world. There is a
disconnect of thought that creates an uncertainty in the being. Education of
self is the key to a good recovery from the harmful effects of ancestral
chattel slavery. A knowledge of and acceptance of self is a liberating
journey.
Empirical research and study into the origins of African-American being and
knowledge will lead the citizen triumphantly out of the destructive past to
the discovery of a contemporary suitable American being, a more universal
being, who is fully capable of masterfully addressing the American future.
Pelvo White, Jr.