Sure glad to be Black!

By Dr. E. Faye Williams, Esq.
TriceEdneyWire.com Columnist

When you think about the harsh treatment Black people have experienced, and still experience in this country, when you think of 400 years of Black people being enslaved, having gone through Jim Crow, segregation, lynching and every indignity you can think about, don’t you at least say to yourself, “I’m sure glad I’m Black?”

I say that because I watch the news religiously, and listen to all sides of this Trump thing. I look at everybody involved, and none of the crooks or accused crooks look like you or me! I know some of our ancestors suffered severe and outrageous beatings and other sinful indignities, but we’ve never heard of any of them engaged in conduct like that attributed to Donald Trump, Mike Pence, Rudy Giuliani, William Barr, Robert Hyde, Devin Nunes, and all of those unsavory characters who meet at the Trump Hotel Bar! You can take note that none of them look like you or me!

Despite a few bad apples among us from time to time, none of them are major players in this plot to get dirt on the Bidens or subvert national interests.

Rachel Maddow interviewed Lev Parnas, who described what can only be called a serious mob operation! If just one half of what Parnas has shared with us is true, we are living in a very dangerous country, and I’m sure glad to be Black!

I read about Darryl Scott (one of us) and others trying to pull a fast one down at Virginia Union University in Richmond by trying to entice people to be present to honor Donald Trump and Jared Kushner on the sacred day America observes Dr. Martin Luther King Day! The hook was to offer money – lots of it to unsuspecting Black people who didn’t know the real purpose of the event! Yes, I admit that was a bad act, but even that does not rise to the level of what Black people (Red, Yellow and Brown people, too) have seen on the news every night. I know Darryl is friends with Trump and his supporters – but what he tried to do is small time compared with what Trump’s friends from another mother have done and are now trying to cover up.

Black people, for once, can be glad to be Black. I know I am. I pray that my good white friends are wishing they could be Black, Brown, Red or Yellow, too because we’ve never committed any act remotely close to the current crimes we’re seeing. All white people aren’t involved, and I congratulate them; but think about their new, uncomfortable feeling every time they turn on their televisions observing only white people, many with whom they identify and support, mixed up in this corruption. Those of us who are fortunate enough to be Black know well what daily recriminating, negative news feels like. Imagine how it feels to those whites whose new reality is that our current national disgrace is not shared.

Imagine having these accusations directed at you or those who reflect your values. The leader of this mob has been impeached, but, unlike typical consequences for those of us who are non-white, for all the witness verified, condemnable acts, unless there is a miracle of justice, 45 won’t even be convicted. Many of the senators elected to represent all of us have already indicated that they will turn a blind eye to the voluminous evidence that would change the mind of a normal, objective person.

At least for the next few days non-white people can watch and live without the fear or threat of being maligned and condemned for involvement in this national travesty.

Dr. E. Faye Williams is National President of the National Congress of Black Women.

This article originally published in the January 27, 2019 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.