In the October 2017 The Atlantic, Ta-Nehisi Coates has struck again---with the same quality, brilliance and thoroughness as he has demonstrated in previous Atlantic articles. His thesis: "Donald Trump's presidency is predicated nearly entirely on the negation of a black president. And the constituencies he has activated are not going away."
Simply stated, Coates shows that white supremacy is alive and well in modern America; from the beginning of this nation down to the present, racism has always been present. Blends historical past and current political analysis. White Trump represents the bold and brash extreme, Biden and Clinton have their serious shortcomings as well, as do most white Americans. This includes the white church which has not yet confessed, repented, restituted nor repaired the damage done by centuries of white oppression.
A few nuggets from Coates:
"Trump . . . has made the awful [American] inheritance explicit."
"For Trump, it almost seems that the fact of Obama, the fact of a black president, insulted him personally. Replacing Obama is not enough---Trump has made the negation of Obama's legacy the foundation of his own. And this too is whiteness. . . . the construct of a 'white race' is the idea of not being a nigger."
"Trump truly is something new---the first president whose entire political existence hinges on the fact of a black president."
"If you tallied only white voters, Trump would have defeated Clinton 389 to 81 in the Electoral College."
"Speaking in 1848, Senator John C. Calhoun saw slavery as the explicit foundation for a democratic union among whites, working or not: With us the two great divisions of society are not the rich and poor, but white and black; all the [white] former, the poor as well as the rich, belong to the upper class, and are respected and treated as equals.'"
Coates concludes:
"When W.E.B. Du Bois claims that slavery was 'singularly disastrous for modern civilization' or James Baldwin claims that whites 'have brought humanity to the edge oblivion: because they are white,' the instinct is to cry exaggeration. But there is really no other way to read the presidency of Donald Trump. The first white president in American history is also the most dangerous president---and he is made more dangerous still by the fact that those charged with analyzing him cannot name his essential nature, because they are too implicated in it."
Noble comment: In addition to racial inequality, there is also economic inequality. When combined, the impact is unbelievably damaging upon all ethnic Others.
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