Police State

General Barr has declared “Other than slavery, which was a different kind of restraint” the coronavirus lockdown was the “greatest intrusion on civil liberties in American history”.  Being required to stay at home to reduce sickness and death was just short of chattel slavery?  We are so spoiled and entitled that the inability to visit a bar or restaurant is house arrest.  White folks have lost their minds.  Barr is tone deaf due to the constant ringing of white privilege in his ears.  You know, how it appears that sometimes white folks hear a different song than we do, all day long. With these statements at Hillsdale College, William Barr, US Attorney General has confirmed this week what most knowledgeable Black people have understood for some time.  We are currently in a police state with white supremacists and their sympathizers holding many of the highest offices in the federal government.  There is a sickness that exist in America - Racism that declares our history of slavery was not a mistake or a shameful era but just a footnote of history.  The election of Barack Obama notwithstanding, if we are not vigilant, the virus of racism will make a comeback and kill the cultural advancements of this nation.

William Barr and the rest of President Trumps team are not alone.  They are backed by a core constituency that appears to be 50% of all white voter according to the Hill-HarrisX poll reported by Newsweek (8/5/20).  This percentage appears to be holding steady.  In a Pew Research Center’s gold standard poll of 11,000 registered voters, reported by Washington Monthly on September 4, 54% of white voters back Trump. Black America must  understand that beneath all the trappings of success that many of us enjoy, we are viewed as “less than”, or worse still, “criminals” to be feared and controlled, by at least half of the white people we interact with daily.  They have gotten very good at not being overt in displaying their beliefs and politics until recently.  Trump has given them cover to come out in the open again.

While I was working for years to demonstrate, by example, the intelligence, skill and ability of Black men, systemic racism was eating and chewing up Black families and communities. I now have a better understanding of what it has meant to go along, to overlook the undercurrents of systemic racism we encounter each day.  It has meant that we have mass incarceration of Black men,  random violence against Black men and women by law enforcement agencies, persistently high unemployment of Black people without merit, segregated communities that have multiple generations of poverty and poor housing, and consistently poor health and early death of Black people. 
 
I am done with playing nice with people that harbor racial hatred.  I am prepared to do what is required to confront racism.  Whether it is an intellectual discussion, having heated debates, or screaming and yelling at them in a physical confrontation.  We must assert our right to be free from police or citizen harassment, bullying, and public beatings and killings.  I am not sure why there are so many Black people including activist that declare there is a genuine change in attitude of white America about systemic racism.  I deal with each individual as an equal, no exceptions.  On the contrary, I refuse to tolerate anyone that demonstrates they have a racial bias toward me and mine.  Those days are over.