What are we going to do?

14th March 2016   ·   0 Comments

Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

As proof, I point to last week’s incident during a Donald Trump rally during which an older white man sucker-punched a young Black man after the Black man reacted to Trump’s disrespect of his deceased mother.

The police were right there to see the whole thing.

And what did they do? They wrestled the Black man to the ground, of course.

They didn’t arrest the white attacker until the following day, probably only because there was video footage of the entire incident.

Had there not been physical evidence, it would have been the Black man’s word against all of the rabid Trump supporters who think their flip-mouth, egomaniacal leader can do no wrong.

As Trump travels from city to city, viewers around the world get to see America’s underbelly, what the white masses really think about Black, Brown, Red and Yellow people.

More than 150 years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation and a half-century after the passage of the Voting Rights and Civil Rights Acts, white people are still not happy about people of color in America having even the limited freedom and constitutional rights that have not yet been rescinded by Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court.

Clearly, when generations of Americans sang “This land was made for you and me,” they weren’t talking about us.

And so the question begs to be asked: What is “us” gonna do?

We can either allow white supremacists to run roughshod over us or fight back like our forebears have done since they were dragged to these shores by European profiteers. With our survival hanging in the balance, failure is not an option. Fight we must and fight we shall.

We will fight with everything we have, our votes, our hard-earned dollars and yes, our words. We will disseminate important information about our plight across the nation and the world and ask the questions that many of those we elect to represent us and our interests are too afraid, ambitious, unimaginative or self-absorbed to ask.

Here we go:

• With ex-KKK Grand Wizard David Duke supporting Donald Trump and Trump supporters attacking anyone who disagrees with him at rallies across the U.S., what would an America led by “President” Donald Trump look like?

• If these are the best and brightest presidential candidates that both parties can come up with, what does that say about America’s decline in the global community?

• With whites in Louisiana fighting tooth and nail to preserve Confederate monuments in New Orleans and elsewhere, is it any wonder that there are parts of America that view the Pelican State as a backwards, modern-day slave state where justice and democracy have never really taken root?

• Isn’t it about time that the U.S. Department of Justice got around to investigating the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office for its unconstitutional policing and mistreatment of people of color?

• Aren’t you looking forward to President Barack Obama nominating a replacement for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia so that the world can see the U.S. Congress make yet another mockery of democracy, justice and fair treatment?

• Do you expect any good to come out of the United Negro College Fund accepting donations from ultraconservative members of the 1 percent like the Koch brothers?

• How many of the Sewerage & Water Board customers whose water bills are way past due are local businesses who are making huge profits?

• When is the City of New Orleans going to get around to making Tulane University pay property taxes since so few of this majority-Black city’s residents benefit in any way from the Tulane scholarship program?

• Did y’all hear about the racist letter someone sent to Edna Karr High School administrators after it was made public that the school offers financial rewards to high-achieving students?

• In the midst of this budgetary crisis, how many state legislators are being allowed to still hook up their most ardent supporters with state funds that could have been better used to stave off impending cuts to K-12 schools, health care and higher education?

• With the state’s finances in such disarray, how will Republican legislators justify efforts to block Medicaid expansion in Louisiana?

• Are taxes on Louisiana festival tickets and pay cuts for state legislators even up for discussion?

• Why does Louisiana’s Education Supt. John White, the state’s Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, Gov. John Bel Edwards, New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, the New Orleans City Council, Louisiana’s congressional delegation and state legislators have absolutely nothing to say about the state-run Recovery School District’s efforts to build a school for Black children in New Orleans atop a toxic landfill that contains at least eight deadly metals?

• Why is Orleans Parish District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro adamant about trying to put former murder convict Jerome Morgan back in jail after witnesses recanted their testimonies but has still not said a word about whether he will indict former NOPD Officer David Warren for shooting Henry Glover less than a week after Hurricane Katrina?

• Does anyone see anything questionable about a district attorney scouring the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola for witnesses to testify against Jerome Morgan who was wrongfully convicted of murder and spent two decades behind bars at a time when the Orleans Parish District Attorney’s Office is reportedly severely underfunded?

• Why would Orleans Parish District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro vow to work closely with the Innocence Project New Orleans to bring about criminal justice reforms shortly before his re-election campaign but later seek to undermine Innocence Project’s successful release of Jerome Morgan after Cannizzaro was re-elected?

This article originally published in the March 14, 2016 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.