RACISM
Why Black Americans Feel They Have No Allies After Trump’s Victory
Dr. King said, “The Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty amid a vast ocean of material prosperity.” His critique still applies
No man is an island,” the English poet John Donne wrote, arguing that “every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main.” And yet, such an analogy doesn’t seem to apply to Black Americans, as they’ve been uniquely targeted and discriminated against rather than embraced as part of the whole. Many feel isolated, a sentiment further inflamed by Donald Trump’s victory. While some will argue, as James Carville did in 1992, “it’s the economy, stupid,” to explain voters' choices, such rhetoric masks a more sinister motivation — racism. Some Americans voted for Trump to protest Black leadership and women’s rights. Casting their ballot was an undeniable rejection of a multiracial democracy.
As the dust settled, some argued that Democrats failed to attract “working-class voters.” Yet, this argument overlooks the racial history of America’s elections, namely that the Democratic party has never won the majority of White voters since Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law. There’s a racial undercurrent that many discount in favor of…
