I have cut back on the time I spend on social media since last year’s terrible elections. It might be the only good that’s come from one of the worst days in American history.
A once thriving Twitter account is now dead and buried. I simply can’t be anywhere the ghastly Elon Musk and his phony hate-mongers. The place is an overflowing trashcan full of so many lies, and awful things, it’s a wonder it hasn’t self-combusted.
These days, I kick around Bluesky, and Substack’s Notes when I feel like I need to get something off my chest in a hurry.
Last week, white people’s support for Donald Trump and his revolting Republican Party was eating away at me as it often does, so I let go the below blast:
The very direct point, of course, was that without white people, there’d be no President Trump.
“Most white people” got that point, but too many didn’t for my taste, and were indignant that I would type such a thing. Many white commenters made it clear that they didn’t vote for Trump, and/or scolded me for scapegoating them.
Here’s a few examples:
“Wow. What a massive generalization. Lots of brown and black people voted for him too but it’s really irrelevant because it’s not a race thing. It’s a stupid thing. There are lots of dumb people in this country who have zero critical thinking skills. That’s the problem. Not all the bad white people.”
“Uh, I don’t know where you got your stats from … but I’m not so sure. Certainly not this white person …”
“It is not most white people. It’s a select few fucking idiots.”
Thankfully, more got it, than didn’t. This one wins a trophy:
“As white people who *personally* did not vote for him, let’s acknowledge that OUR DEMOGRAPHIC did vote for him. The collective “We” must OWN that, and work harder to engage those who voted for him, or who didn’t vote at all.”
Listen to me: You don’t get credit for simply doing the right thing by not voting for a bigot. It’s the very least that should be expected of you. Voting against a vulgar racist like Trump should be as easy and reflexive as putting on a warm jacket to ward off the bitter cold.
The terrible fact is that in all three elections that the appalling Trump was on the ballot, a majority (most) of white people in America voted for him.
Is everybody a racist who supports Trump? Maybe not, but everybody who did vote for him is a hardcore racist, or best case, ignored his long history of hate, to knowingly put a racist in our White House.
Many of these morally bankrupt people are probably some of your friends and family, or in my case, and as I made clear, ex-friends and family.
Here’s the breakdown of the last three presidential elections from the Pew Research Center. I am not sure why the 2016 numbers are incomplete, but you’ll want to concentrate on the white men and white women columns:
In all three elections that Trump was on the ballot, “most” white men and women voted for him. Hence, my post above.
Now that you’ve had a chance to look at these dreadful numbers, let’s also acknowledge that America mostly has a terrible white man problem, and that there is still a mountain of work to do scouring out the terrible misogyny that still pervades too many households, workplaces and the current White House.
Misogyny goes hand in hand with racism, and is a destructive disease eating away at millions of weak, impressionable minds.
This past week or so alone, Trump, who is rotting from the inside out right in front of our eyes, has called female reporters, “Piggy” and “stupid, horrible and ugly.” This follows a long pattern over his morbid lifetime of disparaging women, and mostly their appearance.
HE, an orange mess of a man, who tapes a dead ferret to his head each morning, is mocking other people’s looks.
But back to the eyesore of a graphic above …
Please take a hard look what Black voters did. I have typed before, and will type until my last breath, that they are America’s true patriots, and the only voting bloc that overwhelmingly and consistently gets it right.
I make it a point of walking in their shoes and at least trying to see things through their eyes whenever I can. How incredibly sad it must be to see white people fail so catastrophically at the polls each year, by electing lowlifes who see white supremacy in America as a virtue, instead of a plague.
I try to imagine how many people would have been shot dead on the spot Jan. 6, 2021, if Black people had dared attack our Capitol and beat and stomped law enforcement officials into the curb, as all those lawless, violent white people did on one of America’s darkest days.
Would Trump have told these thugs that he loved them after that horrific day?
It defies logic that anybody could have watched what happened at our Capitol, and what has happened to the criminals who attacked us since, and not see the rampant, odious white privilege in this country.
I try to imagine how Black people must feel as schools, universities, and corporations recklessly abandoned their Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) efforts in the terrible wake of Trump’s win last year.
These important initiatives, many, decades in the making, now lay in the rubble because of the weak, submissive white people, who either never believed in what they were doing, or worse, are too cowardice to stand up for what is most certainly good … and right … and FAIR.
Because DEI has never once been about favoritism, it is about fairness. If you think Black people have gotten a fair shake in this country, then in addition to your bout with bigotry, you have a terrible case of lying to yourself.
As a white man, who has had every advantage in life, I will not stop hammering these points home. I will not surrender to bigots like Trump, and the horrible people who support him, and like the commenter said above, will “work harder to engage those who voted for him, or who didn’t vote at all.”
This is my core issue — the one that courses through my veins and gives my life real meaning.
I cannot think of men like Martin Luther King Jr. or John Lewis without getting a lump in my throat. These were giants, who endured beatings and even death to take America to a better place. We honor them, by standing on their broad shoulders and rising ever higher.
I will continue to speak up about racial equity, and down against people who do everything possible to prevent it. I will never stop talking about it, because that is exactly what these racists want.
Everything must be done to eradicate racism in America, because until it is dead and gone, we can never dare to say or believe that all men and women are created equal.
Right now, that is simply another lie, and shame on us for not doing everything in our power as caring humans beings to finally correct it.
- D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here.
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