I have to add some crucial distinctions, even I agree with some points. The first most notably is that now matter how angry you are-and I do think the anger of blacks on whites for hundreds of years of racial repression that not just damaged their social and economic opportunities but maimed, killed and terrorized their black communities—I do think that make some divisions that are important to remark. I also think calling out individual contributors on Medium is wrong and dangerous, in a way different from Trump did. Trump’s calling out of people resulted in death threats and violence against them. Absolutely horrific, especially for those individual Georgia poll workers who were just doing their job. What Trump did is not just wrong or immoral, it is illegal and reprehensible. A president targeting an individual citizen is evil, a vast abuse of power, and should be prosecuted solely for that. He is a racist and the documentary from last year which is on Amazon and maybe elsewhere, Unfit, is worth the time. It explains how experts classify him as an actual unempathic sociopath narcissist from a medical trained clinical perspective. Do we really want to emulate his MO in naming people as villains? I think not. As least from an ethical perspective, Medium contributors should rise about this targeting of others. And no one joins Medium to get caught in a flame war, or at least very few.
Secondly, I don’t actually know if the author has some “hidden agenda,” but I’ve read a good number of pieces by him and, although I have my differences and attempt to express them in a form of reasoned debate, I don’t believe he is a racist. His point of view is very familiar to me and stems from socialist ideals of fighting for all the poor, not just one race or ethnicity. My father was a white male intellectual who got this doctorate in the late 1950s in theology as one of the first two lay people to get one. All the others were ordained by a church, such as ministers, priests and rabbis. The older established professors had specific viewpoints, and resented and subtlety attacked my father at universities, seeking his ouster, because he wouldn’t back done from his secular theological viewpoints during the 60s and early 70s when he taught. He also sided with the idea of MLKJ, but specifically the later ideas of him. That is, when King was shot he was fighting not just against racist behavior and laws to be torn down, but for all the poor. He wanted what today we call a basic income. He turned to universalist socialist ideas of justice. These ideals are noble and ideal, very difficult to achieve. I believe the author is coming from that perspective and seems to be of a generation of idealists coming of the 60s and 70s (please don’t get me wrong, I’m not calling him an ex-hippie). I don’t disagree with the almost absolute lack of US government assistance for the poor, and that the government is repressing wages by not pegging the minimum wage to inflation. If it was, minimum wage would be $24 dollars, not even the proposed $15, from the last time it as set at $7.25.
Thus, I would request re-examining your position on him in particular and in general. He is simply to me an idealist with difficult dreams to obtain, a “Don Quixote” charming at windmills I believe is the metaphor. I take a different position or strategy to perhaps achieving the same goals. No question the poor are treated horrifically, systemically bad but the government, regardless of their race. We are richer then Denmark and should be able to at least achieve the protections they have.
The third point is I ask of you is to try to make distinctions about whites. We are not all in the same group. That strategy of lumping us all together is not going boy false, but falls into the hands of the GOP strategists. They want all whites to feel attacked by blacks and switch sides. The want to divide by race. It’s a dumb strategy, immoral, but it worked in getting Nixon elected with “The Great Southern Strategy”, a strategy of using race to get white voters to “switch sides.” The same rational was used then as now: “I don’t like Nixon and think he is a jerk, but I don’t want to vote for “black poor” policies.” (Not explicitly said but whites in the South knew the coded language it was put into). Trump is the modern version of Nixon, the “Great Northern Strategy.” We hear the same excuse of, “I don’t like the guy,” but he “speaks his mind” and “some of policies are good.” Growing up in the northeast, to me this coded means, “Yeah, he’s a racist and woman hater, but he’s got some good policies, like keep the browns out of America and demanding blacks and Jews.”
My brother who still lives up in a burnt out steel mill northern town wanted to vote for Bernie, who was clearly for the poor and “working man”. When Bernie lost, he couldn’t bring himself to vote for Hillary but wouldn’t vote for Trump. Unfortunately, many of the politically neglected white male ex-union workers did vote for Trump instead of Bernie, historically shifting sides. Race-lumping and dividing is bad for everyone. After all, 11 percent of black men voted for Trump and 5 percent of black women did as well A smaller percentage, sure, a minority in a minority you could say, but like the author you criticize, they do exist. I’ll continue to give this author that benefit of the doubt, seek peaceful but vigorous debate because that is who I am and strive to be. And because I grew up knowing some white men like him, specifically my father who liked King for his fight for the poor more than his fight for racism (although he liked King’s inspirational fight against racism and admired King, who did inspire whites and Latinos as well as Blacks). This author you cite is a minority in a minority—a white male on the left with a different view of the minority of white males that voted against Trump like myself.
In the sprit of this Matin Luther King Junior day, all I would is for you reconsideration to take these points into account, not for you to give up your justified anger, and not even to for agreement. MLK was a pacifist, but a non-violent fighter powerfully motivated against vast injustice. Thank you.
