By Lafe Tolliver, Esq
Guest Column
There is life and death in the power of the tongue (Bible proverb). Recently, America has had a front row seat to both see and hear Donald Trump issue racial epitaphs regarding his fictitious power to define and articulate who you are in his estimation.
Trump, the convicted felon, has now taken on the mantle of deciding what ethnic or “race” category a person should fit into according to his alternative universe of political gibberish and race baiting.
At the recent conference of The National Association of Black Journalists, Trump, appearing in a grumpy and sullen mood, told the gasping crowd of attendees that V.P. Kamala was just now turning herself Black whereas before she was an Indian American.
Trump, ever the race-baiter, was challenging Kamala Harris, on national TV that he, Trump, was the best arbiter of her racial designation or heritage or identity.
Trump’s appearance at the convention was his chance to “bogart” 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.
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 like him who determines who you are.
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 he or she is unable to fathom any minority being more than just an “other”.
If that insulting comment was not enough, Trump went further to say that Kamala Harris was dumb and a “low-IQ individual” and his daughter-in-law went so far to characterize her as, “real garbage.”
White America has had a rich history of demonizing people of color for no other reason than a toxic concoction of ignorance and hatred.
The institution of slavery in America saw the initial denigration and imposition of racial artifices that started a propaganda war against Black people that ostensibly last to this very day.
If it wasn’t enough that no Black person was worthy of being called either “Mr.” or “Mrs.” or “Miss”, 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 “auntie” or “uncle”.
Black children were not individualized but collectively called, “pickaninnies” or a “Sambo” or a “jigaboo”. The use of the “N” word was nigh universal.
These names had the intended message of saying to the recipients that you are nothing and you will amount to nothing and unless I change your name, you will be at my bidding and I will determine your present and your future.
Such is the power in a name.
With the vile name calling, Trump and his cult followers were trying to impose their will on people of color by reminding them that at one time “we owned you and did what we wanted to you.”
Trump is trying to revive those days of yore with his MAGA base so that he seems tough to them and is willing to put Kamala Harris in her place.
His latest ruse is to run up the flag that Kamala Harris “cannot talk in front of a microphone and without a teleprompter, she is flustered and unable to complete a coherent sentence!”
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 and Judge Chutkan is par for the course.
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 more than glad to vote for Trump.
In today’s politics, character means very little to the voter who is anxious to see Trump win again because the repeated dog whistles that he utters tells them that he is one of them and wants an America to return to the times of Amos N’ Andy buffoonery and the hijinks of the Little Rascals and the warm societal safety of Ozzie and Harriet.
MAGA sees the population demographics as anyone else and their inner fears are that if the Kamala Harris’s and the Barack Obama’s are in such powerful positions, their rule of the roost is coming to an end.
For them, a multi-cultural and multi-racial society is far more than they can emotionally and mentally bear and Trump is their last avatar to hold the color line.
Contact Lafe Tolliver at tolliver@juno.com