{"id":13235,"date":"2024-08-15T16:08:16","date_gmt":"2024-08-15T16:08:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/?p=13235"},"modified":"2024-08-15T16:08:16","modified_gmt":"2024-08-15T16:08:16","slug":"you-are-whom-i-say-you-are","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/2024\/08\/15\/you-are-whom-i-say-you-are\/","title":{"rendered":"You Are Whom I Say You Are!"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Lafe Tolliver<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By Lafe Tolliver, Esq
\nGuest Column<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There is life and death in the power of the tongue (Bible proverb). Recently,\u00a0America has had a front row seat to both see and hear Donald Trump issue racial\u00a0epitaphs regarding his fictitious power to define and articulate who you are in\u00a0his estimation.<\/p>\n

Trump, the convicted felon, has now taken on the mantle of deciding what\u00a0ethnic or \u201crace\u201d category a person should fit into according to his alternative\u00a0universe of political gibberish and race baiting.<\/p>\n

At the recent conference of The National Association of Black Journalists,\u00a0Trump, appearing in a grumpy and sullen mood, told the gasping crowd of\u00a0attendees that V.P. Kamala was just now turning herself Black whereas before she\u00a0was an Indian American.<\/p>\n

Trump, ever the race-baiter, was challenging Kamala Harris, on national TV\u00a0that he, Trump, was the best arbiter of her racial designation or heritage or identity.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s appearance at the convention was his chance to \u201cbogart\u201d his way into a conversation in which he had no say, but he was itching for a scrum with the assembled journalists; and with the hopes that his acerbic remarks would gain him some airtime on the networks. It did.<\/p>\n

True to form, Trump in antebellum style and like a good Massa, exerted himself to inform everyone that in the final analysis, it would be White folks\u00a0like him who determines who you are.<\/p>\n

Regardless of your rise in politics and in spite of any acquired fame or fortune, you can be assured that waiting in the wings is an anxious Trump like personality who is more than willing to hack your reputation to shreds because\u00a0he or she is unable to fathom any minority being more than just an \u201cother\u201d.<\/p>\n

If that insulting comment was not enough, Trump went further to say that\u00a0Kamala Harris was dumb and a \u201clow-IQ individual\u201d and his daughter-in-law went so far to characterize her as, \u201creal garbage.\u201d<\/p>\n

White America has had a rich history of demonizing people of color for no other reason than a toxic concoction of ignorance and hatred.<\/p>\n

The institution of slavery in America saw the initial denigration and imposition of\u00a0racial artifices that started a propaganda war against Black people that ostensibly last to this very day.<\/p>\n

If it wasn\u2019t enough that no Black person was worthy of being called either\u00a0\u201cMr.\u201d or \u201cMrs.\u201d or \u201cMiss\u201d, it was the object of total mental dominance that such a lack of basic respect also attached to older Black Americans with the noxious titles of \u201cauntie\u201d or \u201cuncle\u201d.<\/p>\n

Black children were not individualized but collectively called, \u201cpickaninnies\u201d\u00a0or a \u201cSambo\u201d or a \u201cjigaboo\u201d. The use of the \u201cN\u201d word was nigh universal.<\/p>\n

These names had the intended message of saying to the recipients that you\u00a0are nothing and you will amount to nothing and unless I change your name,\u00a0you will be at my bidding and I will determine your present and your future.<\/p>\n

Such is the power in a name.<\/p>\n

With the vile name calling, Trump and his cult followers were trying to impose\u00a0their will on people of color by reminding them that at one time \u201cwe owned\u00a0you and did what we wanted to you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump is trying to revive those days of yore with his MAGA base so that he\u00a0seems tough to them and is willing to put Kamala Harris in her place.<\/p>\n

His latest ruse is to run up the flag that Kamala Harris \u201ccannot talk in front of a\u00a0microphone and without a teleprompter, she is flustered and unable to complete a coherent sentence!\u201d<\/p>\n

Flagrant lies and intentional demonization of the Black woman is par for Trump and his ugly history of name calling against Fani Willis and Letticia James\u00a0and Judge Chutkan is par for the course.<\/p>\n

And yet, even with possessing no moral character and being a convicted felon and adjudged a sexual abuser, there are millions of Americans who are\u00a0more than glad to vote for Trump.<\/p>\n

In today\u2019s politics, character means very little to the voter who is anxious to\u00a0see Trump win again because the repeated dog whistles that he utters tells them\u00a0that he is one of them and wants an America to return to the times of Amos N\u2019\u00a0Andy buffoonery and the hijinks of the Little Rascals and the warm societal safety of Ozzie and Harriet.<\/p>\n

MAGA sees the population demographics as anyone else and their inner fears\u00a0are that if the Kamala Harris\u2019s and the Barack Obama\u2019s are in such powerful positions, their rule of the roost is coming to an end.<\/p>\n

For them, a multi-cultural and multi-racial society is far more than they can\u00a0emotionally and mentally bear and Trump is their last avatar to hold the color line.<\/p>\n

Contact Lafe Tolliver at tolliver@juno.com<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Lafe Tolliver, Esq Guest Column   There is life and death in the power of the tongue (Bible proverb). Recently,\u00a0America has had a front row seat to both see and hear Donald Trump issue racial\u00a0epitaphs regarding his fictitious power to define and articulate who you are in\u00a0his estimation. Trump, the convicted felon, has now […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"wf_post_folders":[243],"class_list":["post-13235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorial-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13235"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13235\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13236,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13235\/revisions\/13236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13235"},{"taxonomy":"wf_post_folders","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wf_post_folders?post=13235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}