What do Donald Trump and Amy Cooper have in common?
A Riddle: What do Donald Trump and Amy Cooper have in common? Answer: They both understand the American psyche. Trump clasps a Bible in front of a vandalized church, ushering the power of American religiosity. Amy Cooper threatens a black man, ushering the power of American law enforcement. Both, albeit worlds apart in status and stature, have one powerful and dangerous thing in common. They are white people who recognize their privilege and the power of American symbols.
Amy Cooper, defies the law, refusing to leash her dog in Central Park. Yet, when confronted, does that abominable thing that white women have been doing for centuries — accusing black men of threatening their safety. Who is more unsafe and less protected in America than black women? Perhaps, only black children. Yet, scattered across the nation’s landscape are the bones of black men who have been lynched or maimed after a white woman cried rape. Emmett Till, arguably the catalyst of the modern Civil Rights Movement, was merely one of the them.
Till, a fourteen-year-old African American boy from Chicago, on vacation visiting relatives in Money, Mississippi, walks into a store and purportedly flirts and whistles at the white wife of the proprietor. That night, the power of a fierce American symbol — white women’s fears — is engaged, yielding monstrous results.
Decades later, his accuser, Carolyn Bryant Donham, recanted her story. Unfortunately, much too late for Emmett Till, but once again revealing the barbarity and treachery of white American racism embodied in the symbol of the black male threat to white womanhood. Ironically, today, this threat is intertwined with two potent pathologies — the dominance of European standards of beauty and the fetishization of black men. The white damsel in distress is a powerful American symbol, perhaps, only rivaling the power of religiosity.
Donald Trump, solicits security forces to unleash tear gas and rubber bullets on peaceful protesters in front of the White House. Why? To clear a path for an orchestrated power stroll and photo op with a Bible. Americans should by now be well aware that Donald Trump knows nothing about the Bible or the Christian principles set forth therein. But what he does know, is how to use this powerful American symbol in the hopes of catapulting himself into a second presidential term.
Speaking at Liberty University during the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump mispronounced a book of the Bible, referring to it as two Corinthians. Every Christian who even occasionally attends church or reads the Bible, knows that the book is pronounced, second Corinthians.
On the campaign trail, when asked for one or two of his favorite verses, Donald Trump replied, “I wouldn’t want to get into it, because for me that’s very personal… the Bible means a lot to me but I don’t want to get into specifics.” Well, let’s just forget Jesus’ command to his disciples in Mark 16:15 to “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.” Or how about the Apostle Paul’s command in 2 Timothy 2:15 to “study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”
As of this writing, Trump has made over 18,000 misleading or false statements since taking office. Yet, white born-again Christians have embraced him as their favorite son, giving him 81% of their vote in the 2016 presidential election. In the process, they have, like Judas, sold out Christ for the proverbial thirty pieces of silver. It’s laughable — a moment rivaling vice presidential candidate, Sarah Palin’s unforgettable inability to cite the newspapers and magazines she regularly read. Journalist, Katie Couric was kind. I would not have let her off the hook. And Americans who truly aspire to create the democracy that some erroneously suggest we already have, should not let racists and liars off the hook either. To do so, will only perpetuate the American nightmare.
