‘2017: YEAR’S END’

‘2017: YEAR’S END’

By Rasheed Z. Baaith

” And thou shalt be secure because there us hope…”  (Job 11:18 a)

While it was a year of tumult, pain, violence, racism, failings by the White House and so much more, the year is ending on more than a shard of hope.

Most importantly, the Senatorial voting in Alabama demonstrated what the power of the Black vote could be if we would just vote and not consider ourselves Democrats or Republicans but the “swing vote.” That vote determined so much more than we thought we could or many believed we could. America knows there is a power in the Black vote nationally that had not been fully made evident, not even in the years of the Obama Presidentcy.  In particular is the explosive power and weight of the votes of Black women.  They have not just in Alabama, seized the political initiative in both voting and running for office.  But all over the country. And they are smart enough to know better than tying themselves to one party or one selected candidate.  2018 will usher in a new power group for this corrupted power group system that has taken the Black vote for granted for so long or ignored the Black vote completely.

This was a year in which the President of the United States made clear his racism and racial indoctrination by declaring American Nazis and white supremacists were “nice people” even if they used an automobile to kill someone who disagreed with their imbecilic thinking. More racism was apparent as he was discharging his duties to alleviate the devastation of a hurricane to American people. He found a reason to treat people who are persons of color much more poorly than people who looked like himself.  Everything about this President’s policies is birthed out of his divisive thinking and his determination to take America as far into a police state reality as he possibly can.

Think that’s hyperbole?  He has demonstrated he is determined to destroy the free press, to silence any opinion that does not agree with his, to undermine the power and confidence of the American people in the foundational institutions of this country. Condemning these institutions as too politicized to be impartial out of one side of his mouth but designating Fox News as a state run media in everything but name.

No government entity, not the State Department, the Court system, the Justice Department (in particular the FBI), the public Educatio, has escaped his venom.  And while a lot of folk have been focused on his vulgar and vile texts, he has stocked the lower federal courts with individuals whose main qualification to become jurists is to be in their legal thinking far to the right of Germany’s Sondergericht courts during World War II.

Those courts were used to remove internal opposition to the Nazis. Just think about it.

Yet again the Alabama election comes to mind.  There appears to be a growing number of people in this country, Independents, Republicans and Democrats who are now determined to change the course of this country and the impact of this President’s policies on its citizens. They have decided that being right is more important than being partisan, that the character of a candidate is more crucial that the label of a political party and even more that all politics is local and local power can nullify or check federal power.

I think too that 2018 will be the year of women. They have shown what unity can do to some of the most influential power systems in this country.  They have declared an independence, not based on gender but formulated from decency. This movement of American women may well change the world.  It has definitely altered America.

I’m optimistic for the coming year and secure in my thinking. Why?  Because the Bible tells me so.