“A couple of things”
By Rasheed Z. Baaith
“But where shall wisdom be found? And where is the place of understanding?”
(Job 28:12)
One of the things unnoticed by most of us is the destructive influence President Trump’s behavior and verbiage is having on the people of this country.
Everywhere we turn there has been a lowering of standards. Not just in preoccupations such as politics, immorality, faith, race, church and misogyny but even in family life and parental expectations of their children.
Profanity of some degree is accepted in every media platform and truth has become whatever one says it is. The responsibility for all of this cultural trash is a lot to put on the shoulders of one man but the facts of recent history support the supposition that President Trump has redefined much of what this country once considered of what is acceptable and what is not.
His use of the words “fake news” to describe anything that displeases him has if not eliminated, has held in check those who examine what he says and does, then finding it lies. His vulgar speech has made profanities putative. Much of America finds his practice of expletives as a means of describing people, places, and things almost conventional. Why is this so?
It is because President Trump knows that Americans will put up with a lot if someone puts some dollars in their pocket. The low unemployment rate, the relative health of the economy allows a justification for many as the reason for their support of a man in the White House, whose behavior is often disgraceful. And that leads us to his crowing about how low Black unemployment is. I’m glad our numbers appear to be low because it destroys another false narrative about us: the one that says we are a lazy people who do not want jobs or the responsibility of working. If that were the case it would not matter how much work was available, we would not take advantage of the opportunities. We want to work, we have always wanted to work. Trump and his nationalist buddies cannot have it both ways. We cannot be seen as lazy and at the same time, be employed in what they say are record numbers.
Yet, all of these deceptions and false statements, these lies would have no importance if the people would inform themselves as opposed to believing everything someone says because if political agreement. The Bible says, “study to show yourselves approved.” Approved as one who seeks truth and knowledge, and approved as one who sees God’s standard of behavior as the only standard appropriate from those who would lead us.
Many Evangelicals have made the name “Evangelical” a political position instead of Christian affiliation. Many of them say they support Trump because they are politically in line with him. To me that’s like saying John the Baptist should have supported Herald’s debauched behavior because he allowed temple doors to be open.
There is one thing more. As I wrote last week, Kanye West has the right to say anything he wants. But we have the right to challenge anything he has said. Especially if what he has said is ignorant and historically inaccurate.
He is a prime example of people who speak from an unstudied logic. Not just of a subject matter of which he has no real knowledge but of the object of his admiration. He reminds me of rap sessions fueled by the effect of smoking weed. The conversation becomes specious and empty. Just like Kaye’s thinking. These statements are not the result of free thinking, they are the results of his desire to discontinue his relationship with black people. He is the latest of a too long line of Black artists who, once they have been bolstered into financial success and celebrity by people whose faces are the same as his, pretend what they have become transcends who they are.
Kanye and his new love for racist far right conservatives, will find there really is no place like home. The will use him to bolster the lies they tell about us and when they have used him up, they’ll send him back where he came from. The question becomes will we accept.
