As the election nears, only a matter of days away now, we keep hearing the Democrats crow about how Biden is the champion of Black America. They riot in Philadelphia because a mentally ill man charged the cops with a knife and got shot. Well, I think most of the folks that are going to wind up reading this are going to agree, it doesn’t matter what race you are, if you charge a cop with a knife, he’s going to shoot you. But yet, the Democrats riot.
Which has me thinking: what are the stakes for Black America in this election? Black folks obviously have a different perspective on things. And I’m certainly not trying to speak for them. I’m as lily white as they come. What I’m trying to do here is just look at how they will fare under Trump as opposed to Biden.
I don’t think we have to rehash what Trump has done. He has a long list, from Criminal Justice Reform, to funding Historically Black Colleges, to Opportunity Zones, to the economic opportunities that Black Americans had under his administration. The truth of the matter is that Trump’s economic policies benefited blacks disproportionately to whites and has done more to raise that community out of poverty and provide for long term wealth than 50 years of government social programs. This is what is at stake for Black America. If Biden wins, all this goes away and you go back to the expectation that the government will put Black America on public assistance, they cash their check, and vote Democrat. There is a real clear contrast between the way the two men’s policies would affect blacks.
And that is all well and good. Lets look at Biden’s big “selling points”.
On COVID, Biden is a disaster. He frequently says Trump isn’t doing enough, but when you dig into Biden’s plans, he has no plan. He wants more testing. Where is that going to come from? The sky? It sounds good, but he can’t magic reliable test kits into existence any more than Trump can. He wants a national shutdown and mask mandate. Well, congratulations, we’re all broke and he doesn’t have the authority to issue a national mask mandate. Blacks are disproportionately working in front line jobs. They are also some of the most at-risk of COVID giving the chronic obesity in their community. But Biden’s promises of getting the virus under control are nonsense. He can’t do that; he’s not God. All he is going to do is take away more people’s jobs in the name of lockdowns to stop something that can’t be stopped.
How about on the issue of “Unarmed black men being shot” (as I heard it being called on the radio this morning). Well. The Republicans are never going to pander on this issue the way the Democrats will. But, we know that the media has been lying about this issue to gin up support for Biden. Look at how fast the FBI under Trump sent 15 FBI agents to look at a garage pull for Bubba Wallace. And it turned out to be a fraud but it shows that this kind of stuff is taken seriously under Trump. The media is selectively pulling cases that are difficult to prosecute to gin up outrage. That doesn’t mean that Trump and the political right are callous and indifferent to injustices in the world. It means that as a society we have agreed to a set of legal processes to resolve these things. They have to go through the courts. And in this life, you aren’t guaranteed justice. Only true justice will be when Jesus comes back. But I think the question we want to ask is this, are black folks better off because an angry mob got some politicians to throw some cops under the bus? Or for the Rule of Law to be respected and applied equally to everybody in the country?
One thing is true. Black America has the power to sink Biden. They don’t even have to support Trump, all they have to do is not turn out for Biden and he’s done. I happen to think that black folks would be wise to stick with Trump.
Trymian’s admonition to take a vitamin D supplement is good advice for most people, but EXCELLENT advice for anyone black. All that melanin means you have a hard time making enough D from just sun exposure.