A MOUTH FULL OF BILE’

A MOUTH FULL OF BILE’

By Pastor Rasheed Z Baaith

      “You know my friends, there comes a time when people get tired of being trampled by the iron fist of oppression.  There comes a time my friends when people get tired of being plunged across the abyss of humiliation, where they experience the bleakness of nagging despair.”

(Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. “A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches”)

The President’s comments on immigration should come as no surprise to any of us. We have been taught that while man looks on the outside, God looks at the heart.  It is time we not only looked at the heart of Donald Trump but accept what his heart reveals to us. That he has a heart full of hatred and intolerance and bigotry. Him denying and his supporters denying he is a racist will not change the reality of what his heart displays and his mouth endorses. Which is : President Trump is without question a racist.

And despite what the nephew of Dr. King said, and demonstrating to us he lacks the moral courage of his uncle, President Trump is the traditional racist. While he does not light torches, he ignites passions of xenophobia, while he does not burn wooden crosses, he does fan the flames of racial intolerance in those looking for reasons to justify their anger at people who are a different hue from them. The President knows all of this but continues to speak of people of color in the most exacerbating terms he can.

But even more reprehensible to me are those who continue to defend his racism by implying he is either being misunderstood or his remarks are being taken out of context. As the President and his supporter love to say, all of that is fake news.  No one is misunderstanding him and the context is this: the President campaigned on the need for division and identity politics and he intends to govern that way. Part of that 30% of America that support him without reservation are those who believe that America is a country for white people and any immigrants coming to America should be white people.

They believe that so strongly they are prepared to deport men, women and children; they see no issue in breaking up families or destroying lives. These people see themselves as victims.  They believe jobs have been lost, wages have been stagnated and schools under achieving all because of blacks, browns, reds, and yellows. They believe this so desperately they allowed themselves to believe anything Trump says and endorse any behavior Trump displays.  There is a sad desperation in their support of him.

Yet, I can understand their thinking much more than I can people who know the reality of whom and what Donald Trump is but will not accept what they know is the truth. Especially people of color What illness does Dr. Ben Carson and others like him have that makes them support a man who despises their very skin color?  What value do they find in being a token for the Trump administration? What did Omarosa take away from the White House but humiliation? What did the Presidents of our historically black colleges get from President Trump but a photo opportunity?

But the greatest danger may well be the Republican party’s investing in Donald Trump with the collateral of their honesty, political integrity and love of country. It is obvious from their most recent behavior, they love and fear President Trump more than they love this country or fear being a party that is intentionally homogeneous. They need a warning shot.

Marcus Garvey said this:  There is no sense in hate: it comes back to you; therefore make your history so laudable, magnificent and untarnished that another generation will not seek to repay your seeds for the sins inflicted upon their fathers.” We can only pray Dr. Carson will whisper this or a similar sentiment in the President’s ear.  .