I’ve been undertaking a research project in which I rank U.S. presidents’ policies that enhanced Black causes/civil rights.

In short, presidents who may not have necessarily been ‘friends’ of the Black community, but whose policies took bricks out of the walls of apartheid.

Through Saturday, when I participated in my monthly barber shop ‘nappy headed leadership conference’ at Sid’s on Hopkins, Barack Obama surprisingly ranked third, or fourth depending on how you fit the Affordable Care Act within my stated paradigm.

As I undertook my research, I quickly found that it is far easier to flip the script and rank the worse of the worse, than to subjectively rank those presidents who helped eliminate the barriers to justice and equal rights.

Among the worse—most bigoted— was Andrew Jackson (who many Native Americans view as a son of Satan), James Polk, or more recently—20th century— Woodrow Wilson, ‘Tricky Dick’ (Richad Nixon), and Ronald Reagan.

But while there may have been debate over who came in second, easily topping the list is Donald Trump, aka ‘King T,’ ‘Emperor Don,’ and Tarzan, with a small ‘t!’

It’s not sociocultural rhetoric to accuse the Trumpster with not only being a bigot (vs. racist), but of setting back civil rights 112 years, nine months and 12 days, according to my outdated calculator.

Trump, who has done more to undermine civil rights than any of his racist/bigoted predecessors, has authenticated my contention that there is a difference between racism and bigotry.

(Racism, in my lexicon, is someone who feels superior and/or hates people of another ethnicity—mostly out of jealousy. A bigot is someone with the power to legislate their hatred.)

In today’s twisted society, verbalization of someone’s ‘stupidity’ is not necessarily a sign of racism. A white teenager who recites gangsta rap whose lyrics include the contentious word nigger (n-word) isn’t a member of the White People’s Socialist Party or KKK.

But, it’s beyond rhetoric, for example, to post caricatures of Barack and Michelle Obama as apes, or refer to Haiti and African nations—the Motherland and ground zero for life and civilization—as ‘sh.thole’ countries.

And in terms of DT the DJ’s (square dance only) racist rhetoric, his BS was just the tip of the black iceberg.

He took his racism to the realm of bigotry on his first day in office when he outlawed DEI/affirmative action and fired any sister with rhythm or a weave.

Swinging from vine to vine, he used his microphone to announce the dismissal of dozens of Black officials who refused to kiss his ring, and or (stinky) backside.

Among them was Peggy Carr, commissioner of the National Center for Education; Lisa Cook, a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, and Carla Hayden, Congressional librarian. To display his attempt at being gender neutral, he also dismissed General Charles Brown, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

And it’s not a coincidence that Trump’s war on Affirmative Action—DEI–resulted in a quarter of Black people with the ability to legislate or hire and fire, being axed and told, as the Ray Charles song lamented, to “hit the road, Jack(lyn).”

Before the vape smoke cleared, the orange American Ceasar, who vowed to take America back to the good ole days of segregation, racial profiling and open hostility toward ‘hue-mans,’ also rescinded laws that prohibited segregation and racial profiling in hiring, telling HUD officials to ignore redlining.

The prez (who has the lowest approval ratings of any president in U.S. history) spearheaded assaults on fair housing, curtailed Department ofJustice investigations of discrimination, and rescinded Obama’s executive orders that provided full citizenship to gays and transgender people.

Simultaneously, ‘the Dandy Don,’ pardoned the new wave confederate army volunteers (traitors) who terrorized the Congress on January 6,2021 instituted steep cuts in health care that directly impacts people ofcolor and opened up a new branch within the FBI whose agents weretasked to find and arrest any American who possessed a photo of a certain naked first lady. ..

Before we could exhale, or spit out our neckbone gristle, Trump closedthe Social Security Administration’s office on Civil Rights and Equal Opportunity. In his broken English, that means we are not only discriminated against during our youth, but in our last days.

Those dastardly deeds were in addition to cutting research grants targeting cancer, sickle cell and hypertension, each of which we—andme—are disproportionately impacted.

So, in essence, the new Ceasar makes us sick, and then cuts fundingfor programs that could cure us of our ailments.

If a civil rights policy had Obama’s, Joe Biden’s or even LyndonJohnson’s name on it, Trump sought to have it rescinded.

Among the policies to fall under that category was a LBJ executiveorder that rooted out discrimination on federal contracting; Biden policies that advanced diversity and inclusion (actually Trump banned allDEI) and Obama policies that equalized the playing fields for Americanswith alternative sexual preferences or gender identification.

The irony of this dilemma we find ourselves in is that America votedthis orange, cotton candy quaffed Napoleon into office. He has turnedour lives and the world upside down and inside out. Every day he comes up with some new audacity, some mindless myopic policy that matcheshis idiotic lies, which as of last week, totaled 30,573.

You can question his motives—make America a ‘grape again’—or his saneness. But we’re only in the first quarter of his second term. And to give you an idea of what to expect in the next three years, consider thisdictator/king/tyrant led a national prayer (spelled ‘p-r-e-y’) last Sunday.He then issued a post card in which he posed as Jesus. Yes, the manwho stood outside St. John’s Church while dictating governors to callout the national guard to quell protests over the murder (public lynching)of George Floyd, now likens himself to the Messiah.

That was bad enough, but what was a more serious affront to Christianity was during his first term, the president of the United States washolding, and supposedly reading from a bible…held upside down!!!

Fortunately, Moses wasn’t around to see this affront.

All I can say is we had better buy up all of the W-D 40 lubrication oil,before they loosen up the gates for the new plantations.

To which I pray: Lord/Jehovah/Nyame help us.

Hotep.

Milwaukee Community Journal

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