Friday, March 29, 2024

Election Revealed Inconvenient Truths About America

December 12, 2016 by  
Filed under Community

BY LOUIE OVERSTREET

Louie Overstreet

Last month’s election results, if nothing else, exposed some inconvenient truths about bigotry in America. Bigotry, both covert and overt, has been a staple of the Republican Party for many years. This is not to say that certain forms of bigotry aren’t present among Democrats, as well.

Up until this very day, bigotry has placed an enormous economic and social burden on this country. The three most glaring examples are the high rates of drug use, mass incarceration, and large numbers of working age Americans faced with the prospect of being structurally unemployed for much of their adult lives.

In all three cases, persons of color are overrepresented. Times have become so difficult, you have to be willfully ignorant to miss the caste system that is quickly forming in America. Undereducated people in ethnic or racial minority groups are at an extraordinarily high risk for addiction, imprisonment or welfare dependency.

However, when the toxic stew of racism and sexism were on full display in the presidential campaign, Americans took a big gulp of that witches’ brew at the ballot box and selected Donald Trump to be our 45th president. Not only did we set the clock back, I am predicting that we set America back an entire generation. As Bette Davis said in “All About Eve”: “Fasten your seatbelts it’s going to be a bumpy night.”

Unfortunately, contrary to what many persons of the majority culture may think, electing Donald Trump as President “ain’t gonna” change a damn thing for poor white folks. If you believe it will, then you are buying into a crude hoax.

The foregoing sad state of affairs is why America is well on its way to surrendering its standing as the moral leader of the free world — now that we have allowed bigotry to triumph over decency.

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