Donald Trump Refuses to Stop Stoking the Flame of Racism in America & Must Be Voted on November 3rd!

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By Ron Signore

At Purdue University, Professor Robert Young had once made the enlightening suggestion that history doesn’t repeat itself. The suggestion was meant to illustrate that there are similarities in events, but at the end of the day, everything is something new. I have never wanted to challenge that theory I heard in Matthews 105 more than I want to over these last few weeks.

These past few weeks in our country have been some of the most disturbing I can remember in my 35 years. The country was already in a shaky condition considering the citizens fighting a pandemic, seemingly alone with no real support or plan from our nation’s leadership. The COVID-19 virus spread so drastically that it caused our country to practically shut down in many aspects. The effect was felt in businesses, forcing people to be furloughed or laid off, or worse, close altogether. Some 20 million people unemployed as a result. The economy struggled as we try and figure out how to stabilize to a new normal, knowing normal we knew was no longer going to exist.

Now circle back to the point of the government letting the country down on a plan for battling the pandemic. The country was growing mounting tensions for something as ridiculous as wearing a mask and concepts like social distancing to try and prevent further spread of the virus. Serious hypocrisy from the “Pro-Life” party who decided they wanted to use a “Pro-Choice” slogan for choosing not to wear a mask in “my body, my choice.” There is further irony to that which drives right to the typical Republican Party stereotype who opts to be “Pro-Life.” By not wearing a mask to help prevent the spread of the virus, they are endangering the lives of others who may not only get infected, but pending the certain characteristics like age or underlying medical conditions, the virus could be significantly more fatal.

The mockery of “my body, my choice,” stems from consistent misinformation spread from our President, who consistently downplays the virus. He referred to it as a hoax. He refuses to wear a mask. He made suggestions, whether in jest or his own demented stupidity, that referenced drinking bleach or injecting Lysol. Either way, in a traumatic event like this, it is not the time for joking. The desperate and stupid begin to think of trying anything that can prevent getting the virus or kill it if they do contract. He made claims to reopen the country and other factions discrediting the social distancing concepts so prematurely, it allowed for the blind followers to think this virus is no big deal. Thankfully, there are people who have some intelligence and think for a living that unselfishly wear a mask to do their part in the stop of the spread.

Consider that preamble the fire the country was under. As a leader, you have two choices, both have consequences. Choice one is to take control and bring the people of the country together for a common cause of strength. Choice two would be doing anything else, including nothing, which would plant that continuously growing wedge. I’ll give you two guesses as to what choice what our joke of a president decided to do, and it is not choice one. With the country on fire from the pandemic, we then start to slowly see some progress of flattening the curve. Cases start to somewhat decline in many areas. Then, history repeated itself.

On May 25th, a story out of Minneapolis, MN hit the nation that disturbed the nation. George Floyd, a 46-year-old African American male was being arrested. During his apprehension, one of the four arresting officers used a choke maneuver that planted his knee on Floyd’s neck. We are not just talking to stun while being handcuffed or subdue for violent resist of arrest with an officer’s life in danger. Without exaggeration, we saw this brutality enacted for 8 minutes and 46 seconds. Video surfaced with Floyd begging for his life, expressing how he could not breathe. The footage was, and is still, hard to watch.

Police brutality is more often examined than the public would like to believe. In fact, it’s because of the number of instances internal affairs is involved with police tactics, it paints a blind eye to the public, which leads to a portion of the country believing police can do no wrong. However, when it is police brutality of a white officer resulting in the death of an African American, it hits national spotlight in a manor so fast, lightning seems slow.

In the year 2020, we would want to believe in the best possible way that acts of racism are a thing of the past. Reality check. They are not. They are very much still alive. Over the last ten years we have seen excessive force in high profile racially based executions by police including Laquan McDonald, Freddie Gray, Stephon Clark, and Alton Sterling to name just a few. And just a few weeks prior, Ahmaud Arbery, was shot and killed in plain sight while going for a jog. Though it was not “police” that executed him, it was clear by footage that the crime was senseless and racially driven. Furthermore, the way the police handled the investigation and appeared a lack of drive to figure out if the homicide was malicious or justified.

Floyd’s death was the alarm clock going off for the nation after hitting snooze repeatedly. Protests began to form nationwide. Media coverage showed war zone like conditions in many protests in the beginning, resulting in looting and physically dangerous conditions. As time went on, intention towards peaceful protests were made clear and coverage showed exactly that. The Black Lives Matter (BLM) was pushing forward. The confusing piece to me was arguably the spotlighted offenders of non-peaceful protests. Multiple cities showed critical damage caused by white people. Furthermore, these white people were not supporters for the BLM. Several had ties to white supremacist groups.

Remember, the country is already on fire. When there is a fire, the first response may be to dump water on it to put it out. If that does not work, the fire department is called, and they extinguish the flames. In this case, that metaphor extends to calling upon leadership of this country to help unite its hurting citizens. In this case, our leadership fought the fire with gasoline.

Our current President did nothing to help calm things and unite this country. In fact, in typical ego maniac fashion, he helped drive the wedge farther to divide us. De ja vu like events to the Kent State Massacre, Trump allowed for the tear gassing and rubber bullet use as he waddled to St. John’s church for a photo opportunity to shamefully hold a bible as if he is a man of the church and religiously practices the preaching’s of the bible in his everyday life.

Do not poke the bear. That is usually good advice. In this case, with a usual sense of lacking knowledge or being educated on the topic, Trump sends several tweets out that show a digging of heals and the stature of a dictator calling for “Law and Order.” He orders in the military to the DC area help try and defuse the situation. He tries to claim he will order the military into other cities nationwide invoking Marshall Law on the country’s own citizens. Furthermore, he makes the disturbing claims that the military defused the situation like a knife through butter. Pretty brave of a man to do so while he decides to hide in a bunker for protection.

As the protests continue, the BLM gains momentum in pushing for police reform. Calls to “defund” the police make their way to headlines. Admittedly there was a lot of confusion to that and when people do not know what they are talking about, concerns of fear uncertainty and doubt grow. BLM is calling for police reform with these calls. Not to abolish the police entirely. This would call for things like better training and demilitarizing the police in efforts to eliminate police brutality, and racial brutality from police on African American citizens.

Queue the misinformation. Typical name calling to the leaders of the liberal agenda and putting a fearful spin on the country of what “defund the police” means hit social media like a disease. This additional dosage of fuel to the fire puts an equal human rights concern in the middle of a political battle. Right wing supporters, who clearly do not understand the BLM, push the notion that the left-wing agenda is to call for lawlessness and no police efforts. They hit social media with the racially insensitive hashtag of “All lives matter,” to point out a flaw in BLM. The closed-minded thinking does not seem to understand that BLM does not only mean BLM. Of course, all lives matter. No one should die senselessly. Arguably a point to clarify BLM is to keep being acknowledged that black lives are as valuable as any life and to stop perceiving African Americans as some sort of sub citizen to our United States. Help the continued fight for equality.

While some progress has been made in the BLM for the call of police reform, since George Floyd’s death, we have seen the deaths of Breonna Taylor in Louisville, and 5 lynching’s of African Americans ruled as suicide. We saw the killing of Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta. We have our President deeming a left-wing movement, Antifa, is a terrorist organization, while he sits idle to groups like the Ku Klux Klan are looked at as upstanding citizens. Left and right continue to clash on how to bring this nation together.

To be clear, I am not judging George Floyd as a person or defining him as some sort of martyr. He clearly did not deserve or need to die in that situation, along with the many others in the aforementioned. The repeated history lives strong through the words of Bruce Springsteen, “you can get killed just for living in your American skin.” We have come so far as a nation, but clearly, we are not out from under the racially prejudice mentality in many instances and the unnecessary deaths keep totaling up.

There is a need for police reform and any effort necessary to eliminate the oppression, pain and suffering that has gone on for over 200 years for African Americans. There is a need for police. These tensions will lead to more unnecessary deaths. The dilemma I have at hand is knowing very good people as police officers, including family, that I would not want in any danger, and this ongoing situation creates danger by design. I have African American friends who I never want to hear a story of racial terror from or get that devastating news about. The other dilemma at hand is who can have an understanding that not all police are bad? I stand with BLM and damn the bad police officers out there the same, but I also stand with our good brothers in blue. The influence of understanding and being open minded towards members of other races, religions, or any other differentiating factor, can be reverted to police as well. The unfortunate truth is that the trust of the police has been lost by many, and that loss of trust echoes for miles. We need to find that trust again. If it is in reform, fine. Some fail to understand the danger many police officers face daily, there are legitimate situations where a decision needs to be made in a split second that means life of death.

My vote goes for whatever puts police and citizens alike in a safe situation. Where crime rates go down. Where unnecessary deaths go down. There is no room for excessive force and brutality. There is no room for these officers in our country. This should be zero tolerance. There is nothing I can say that can even begin to understand the fight in this country for the African American. The goal is to take this recent history and move forward toward a unity. Supporting BLM is only one way that can happen.

The other is ridding our leadership that condones racism. Ridding leadership that does not support the elimination of hatred found in symbols like the Confederate Flag or Confederate monuments. For one, the confederacy lost, it is a losing flag. Second, one America, one flag. Stop allowing the hypocrisy for damning someone kneeling as a protest to the flag of our United States where that right is granted when a large part of your supporters fly a flag that literally competes with what our nation stands for. Our Marines banned it, what are you waiting for. Stop fueling the fire, help extinguish it so this country can come together. That fire only puts more innocent citizens and police lives in danger. If the divide gets deeper, hate grows stronger and the harder it is to repair. This country needs to pull together, even if our president will not help make it happen. We need to be stronger than his hate and we will prevail. It is a long road, it starts now, it dominates through November 3rd and carries on to proactively make this country the free and united nation it is meant to be.

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