WHO LET THE DOGS OUT?

“We are living in a racism pandemic, which is taking a heavy psychological toll on our African American citizens. The health consequences are dire. Racism is associated with a host of psychological consequences, including depression, anxiety, and other serious, sometimes debilitating conditions, including post-traumatic stress disorder and substance use disorders. Moreover, the stress caused by racism can contribute to the development of cardiovascular and other physical diseases.”  

Sandra L. Shullman, Ph.D., president of the American Psychological Association, May 29, 2020

When I grew up, I thought the traumatizing racism black people endured would cease to exist because young whites of my generation would intellectually rise above such nonsensical hate based on skin color.

I was wrong.

The poisonous systemic racism from decades, indeed, centuries ago, is still here and out in the open for all to see. Over time, individual acts of racism existed on the down-low because hatred based on skin color is insane, And educated people knew it.

Even after the Civil Rights Bill of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 became law to quell the black community’s backlash against American whites’ lynching and murder of innocent black people, racism continued to cast its shadow over American society covertly. Blacks exposed it. Whites denied it.

But now racism is out front, mainstream, and normalized. Ex-president Donald Trump is primarily responsible for the widespread racist response to whites’ dwindling population numbers and political power.

Trump continues to use racism as the carrot to drive white voters (like mules) to the voting polls to select racist candidates during this year’s mid-term elections and himself, should he choose to run in 2024. 

Trump attacked black women investigating him at a rally in Fulton County, Georgia. He urged his supporters to take to the streets in Georgia, New York, and Washington D.C. should he be criminally prosecuted. When Trump urged supporters to march on the Capitol, a full-blown violent insurrection ensued, and five people died.

Trump Factor

Last Saturday at a campaign rally (Trump never stopped campaigning) in Montgomery County Fairgrounds in Conroe, Texas, told supporters, in classic Trump reverse psychology, “These prosecutors are vicious, horrible people. They’re racists and they’re very sick — they’re mentally sick. They’re going after me without any protection of my rights from the Supreme Court or most other courts. In reality, they’re not after me, they’re after you.”

Trump embolden other sycophants to express their racial hatred. Louisiana’s Republican U.S. Senator John N. Kennedy, who voted along with 146 other Republicans to overturn the election, last week made a racist statement about the black women President Biden is considering for the U.S. Supreme Court. “GOP Senator John Kennedy, a member of the Judiciary Committee, said, according to Politico: “No. 1, I want a nominee who knows a law book from a J.Crew catalog. No. 2, I want a nominee who’s not going to try to rewrite the Constitution every other Thursday to try to advance a ‘woke agenda.’”

Kennedy’s statement was beyond insulting. His attack on these black women is proof that no matter how educated one is—Kennedy, an attorney, graduated magnum cum laude from Vanderbilt University and studied at an Oxford-affiliated college—that doesn’t prevent one from being ignorant and rabidly racist.

Kennedy was born in Centreville, Mississippi, in 1951, three years before the Brown v. Board of Education decision. Kennedy, who grew up in segregated Zachary, Louisiana, was ten years old when black girls integrated the first public school in the state.

Senator Kennedy Err Speaks

Kennedy couldn’t hold these women’s bra straps. He’s never been a judge, which most of the candidates have, he’s never clerked for a Supreme Court justice, which at least two of the candidates have, he’s never sat on a state Supreme Court, unlike one of the candidates. His work as Louisiana Secretary of the Treasury, executive counsel for two Louisiana Republican governors, and a law practice in commercial litigation, doesn’t measure up to the qualifications of Biden’s potential nominees.

However, racism is a powerful drug, and Kennedy and fellow Republicans are knocking it back like beer.

They’re in the pandemic of racism sweeping America by whites trying to cover up the truth about racism in America. They’re calling for book bans and writing laws against teaching about racism in classrooms.

The movement to ban books by black authors continues Trump’s attack on New York Magazine’s 1619 Project and the blatant lie that Critical Race Theory (CRT) is taught in schools.

As of last November, nine states had passed laws that prohibit the teaching of CRT.

“Fox News has mentioned “critical race theory” 1,300 times in less than four months. Why? Because critical race theory (CRT) has become a new bogeyman for people unwilling to acknowledge our country’s racist history and how it impacts the present,” Rashawn Ray and Alexandra Gibbons write in “Why are states banning critical race theory.”

“Opponents fear that CRT admonishes all white people for being oppressors while classifying all Black people as hopelessly oppressed victims. These fears have spurred school boards and state legislatures from Tennessee to Idaho to ban teachings about racism in classrooms.” 

“CRT does not attribute racism to white people as individuals or even to entire groups of people. Simply put, critical race theory states that U.S. social institutions (e.g., the criminal justice system, education system, labor market, housing market, and healthcare system) are laced with racism embedded in laws, regulations, rules, and procedures that lead to differential outcomes by race,” the authors explain.

Indeed, reports are that the parts of America’s history that involve racism—slavery, state-sanctioned segregation, and historical events like Bloody Sunday, shouldn’t be taught because white people might feel uncomfortable.

“A Florida state Senate committee last month advanced a bill that would prohibit making white people feel “discomfort” when taught or trained about past discrimination in public schools and private businesses.” The Hill reports.

“The bill, S.B. 148, would prevent school educators from teaching subjects that could make students feel responsible for historical wrongs based on their race, sex or national origin.”

White parents are in the streets and at school board meetings demanding that banning of books about racism and the mistreatment of black people, including Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You by Ibram X. Kendi and Jason Reynolds, The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, who won a Pulitzer Prize and the Noble Prize for literature, and Nic Stone’s, Dear Martin. The American Library Association (ALA) keeps banned and challenged books lists.

This is the thing: Black people don’t care about being hated because of skin color. Black people care about racists killing and jailing innocent blacks. They’re concerned about losing their voting rights, economic opportunities, and the lack of access to good-paying jobs, capital, and affordable housing because of skin color.

Former Miami Dolphins NFL Head Coach Brian Flores may lose his ability to earn money because he filed a class-action discrimination lawsuit against the NFL. The Dolphins fired Flores after a winning season. The NFL will probably blackball Flores like Colin Kaepernick. The San Francisco 49ers fired Kapernick when he began kneeling during the national anthem to protest racial injustice and police brutality.

Flores acknowledges he was taking a risk but says, “This is bigger than me.” The former head coach said he wants his sons and daughter to grow up in a world knowing they can accomplish great things. Reports are that Flores has interviewed with the Houston Texans and the Saints.

Pittsburgh Steelers Coach Mike Tomlin is the only black head coach among 32 NFL football teams.

Racism went viral during the summer of Reckoning in 2020 when millions worldwide marched in solidarity against George Floyd’s murder by police and other killings of unarmed black people in the U.S.

However, there was a colossal whitelash. Not only did white cops continue to murder unarmed black people, but a white citizen, Kyle Rittenhouse, killed two white people and injured a third who were protesting the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a black man, in Kenosha, Wisconsin. 

Words have consequences. There’s no doubt that Trump’s continuous blaming of China for COVID-19 led to violent attacks on Chinese Americans, or his pandering to white nationalists, white militias, and Nazis led to a Trump supporter strolling the hallowed halls of Congress carrying a Confederate War Flag.

Even before 2020, Trump’s racism appealed to whites who became known as “Karens” and “Kens,” white people who verbally attacked black people and other people of color for conducting daily activities.

The American Psychological Association (APA) noticed the acts of bold-faced racism and took decisive action. The organization looked inward and determined that the APA was complicit in contributing to systemic inequities and hurt many through racism, racial discrimination, and denigration of people of color.

In February 2021, the organization published an APA Resolution on Harnessing Psychology to Combat Racism: Adopting a Uniform Definition and Understanding, and on October 29, 2021, the APA offered an Apology to People of Color for APA’s Role In Promoting, Perpetuating, And Failing To Challenge Racism, Racial Discrimination, And Human Hierarchy In the U.S. and The Role of Psychology and APA in Dismantling Systemic Racism Against People of Color in the U.S.

As attacks on black Americans continue by whites, Public Enemy’s Fear of a Black Planet is instructive:

Excuse us for the news

You might not be amused

But did you know white comes from Black

No need to be confused

Excuse us for the news

I question those accused

Why is this fear of Black from White

Influence who you choose?

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