You’d Be Mad Too

 It’s not like I have anyone to apologize to when I write these things. I’m ok if anyone reads them and yet I feel I should apologize for thinking about Trump and this election stuff but it ties into so many different things and it’s current so it’s fresh on my brain. Things to include one of the reasons I decided to even start blogging in the first place. 

I named the blog “writin’ forty” as a pun, yes, but I wanted to write about stuff that’s going on with me in my forties which is more in my rear view than it is in my windshield, crazy as that is to say and think. I would imagine it makes sense that things that happen in your now are often as a result or reminiscent of things that happened in the past and sure as shooting that is what I’m feeling with this Trump stuff. 

Imagine that you are a black man in America, specifically the United States. Let me tell y’all, I couldn’t imagine wanting to be any other race in the US: black Americans literally made this country. Ours is a story of slavery and subjugation and oppression and triumph and frustration and progress and growth. Ours is a rich and honorable tapestry. We have fought not only for our own existence but for respectability; to stand besides white men and any other men as equals. 

Well what does it mean to be equals? I’d think that is a simple enough proposition: it means a black man or woman (or other) can ascend to the highest levels of a profession, in the state or national levels of government, to the highest paid actor or actress in Hollywood, and the response would be from the vast majority that he or she earned that distinction without any reservation or need for some right wing expose. 

So imagine that you’re a black man in America, doing your best to live your American dream, and in that dream you take on any number of friends to include white people. You do this in spite of being raised with grandparents who had every reason to absolutely despise and not trust white people, which means they raised kids who became your parents who (while slightly less so) had any number of reasons to have suspicions of white people and how they may or may not be detrimental to your livelihood as a black person. 

You become friends with white people. You laugh and you cry and you tell each other your secrets. You eat and you drink and you stay at each other’s houses. You served together in the military and you worked together in civilian jobs. You sweat on the same mats in martial arts and you lift weights at the same gym. You called each other brother and sister. You become play uncles and play aunts to each other’s children  

Then a Trump comes along. 

He lies and gaslights. He has a cartoonishly sordid past to include beating his wives, sexual assault of women, preying on young girls, preying on his own daughter, making fun of disabled people, insulting veterans. He absolutely is xenophobic, misogynistic, and racist in the most obvious ways that you can be those things. 

As a black man who has a lifetime of subject matter expertise you tell your white friends how bad all of this is. You back it with not only your life experience but with facts and evidence from subject matter experts. 

All of this is ignored to listen to Trump. You beg and you plead but all of your expertise and friendship is either outright ignored or downplayed for any number of reasons that usually come down to how somehow YOU are on the outside of the echo chamber they’ve put themselves in so your words and pleas fall on deaf ears. Nothing means more to them, apparently . 

The things they believe in; the things that they say are either completely false or have a malicious, bullying intent that should be obvious. But again, your words are not heard on this subject. The message THEY believe is they’re believing words of benevolence (from a person lacking any sense of that word).

So imagine when the choice comes to elect a guy who is mentally and morally bankrupt in every way, who has spoken words that are detrimental to me as a Black Man in America (not to mention literally ANY minority in this country), your white friend decides, proudly, to vote for a Trump.

Despite your subject matter expertise. Despite your facts;  despite you literally telling them how hurtful this person is to your existence and the existence of other minority groups. They ignore ALL of this to vote for a Trump.

They then turn around and tell you that you shouldn’t make such a big deal out of politics despite them making it a central part of their identity for a substantial period of time; if you don’t like them voting for Trump you should still be their friend at the exact same level.

Even though you warned them of all the true things this man is and is not but most importantly that a Trump100% makes it clear that if you’re not a white, straight American you are a second class citizen in this country but hey, a Trump PROMISED he’d bring them cheaper groceries than they have now (while never once detailing how he’d do it).

Imagine all of that.

You’d be mad too.

I feel like a good portion of my friends I have to reevaluate because of the above scenarios. I literally have to for so, so many reasons that I tried to detail and hope I at least somewhat captured some of the hurt that I’m feeling about this. 

I didn’t get into the friends who voted for Trump who WEREN’T white because man, that’s just more levels of mad. Veterans. Men with daughters. Men who didn’t beat their wives. People who didn’t commit felonies. There’s so much more. 

You either vote for a Trump because you’re willing to ignore all of the ugliness he is and has brought and will bring or you wanted all of it. Either way, that’s cause for me to trust your judgment. From people I just met to people I have known for decades.

You’d. Be. Mad. Too.