The fight of our lives

 

I’ve struggled with depression for most of my life.  Depression has derailed successes that I could have had and made them acute failures.  And just when I thought I found reasons to rejoice in my existence comes the resurgence of something that will impact me for the rest of my life.

The message is clear…my life and my presence have no value in this country.

There is so much hatred in the world that it has spilled beyond the closets that they conveniently hid in and have somehow found their way into the mainstream of our society.  It is the norm.  Everybody knows somebody that hates someone for no reason…or rather, most people of non- color know somebody that hates someone for no other reason than the way they look, love or worship. And while some of you reading this may say, “Hey, that’s pretty racist for him to say that!”  To that I would have to say that it only sounds that way.  It may sound unfair; that I am painting one race of people with the same brush and if it were being done to me, I would be extremely upset.  And you may be correct about everything I just said.

Except…

We have a white supremacy/terrorist situation going on in this country.  We always have.  It just evolved into a different form of repression, fear, anger, and resentment.  People of color don’t really care who you worship or look like.  Our problem seems to be with sexual orientation…and even now, we are working on that.  But for some of our non-black brothers and sisters, it appears on the surface and by their own admission, there is an unnatural fear us, an abnormal resentment of us and they are mad as hell at a circumstance that we didn’t create.  Add to that the need to stay and remain in power while simultaneously creating a never-ending source of wealth.

But I digress, the ideology of hatred is the norm while the dogma of loving your fellowman has as much appeal as catching an STD.  And while the philosophy behind white supremacy is nothing new, what it has evolved to in plain sight is something that I think every LGBTQ person fears the most…our rights taken away from us.

The dog whistle has been sounded and open season has been declared on people of color, women, Jews, and the LGBTQ community.  Blacks have always suffered at the hands of the police at a disproportionate rate as compared to whites.  Jews, blacks, and brown people have been murdered in their synagogues, at their grocery stores and during routine traffic stops more than any other group of people.

 Speaking as a member of both the African American Community and our being gay, I am in fear of what our new republic could mean for people like me.  As a member of the LGBTQ community, I could easily see the right to marry striped away from us followed by our very existence coming under assault by laws making it easier for people to discriminate against us.

As a black man, I am in fear that the only places I would be allowed to live in would be the ghettos created for us in the forties and fifties.  People that look like me may be killed and our murderers never brought to justice all because one group of people has decided to take away the rights of another.

We are standing on the precipice of losing our republic as we know it.  We are standing on the verge of losing the democracy that we love and, in many ways, took for granted.  We thought that our democratic systems would remain in place indefinitely because both parties agreed to participate in that process.

But what do you do when our greatest institution falls into the hands of one individual who elicits the very worst in us…creating an “America First” policy that soiled our relationships with many of our allies?

The ideology behind “Trumpism” is nothing new.  We’ve experienced this type of fear and hatred in the early nineteen hundreds.  America First was created at the turn of the century which refers to a policy stance in the United States coined by progressive internationalist president, Woodrow Wilson that generally emphasizes nationalism and non-interventionism. The isolationist approach gained prominence in the interwar period (1918–1939) and was advocated by the America First Committee, a non-interventionist pressure group against the U.S. entry into World War II. (1)

But America First does not necessarily translate to America Great.  We claim that we are the land of the free, but I realized early on that the saying did not apply to everyone. I foolishly thought that it did, but this of course was when I was a child.  I found out in high school that I couldn’t do or say the same things that my white counterparts did or said.  I lost my summer vacation as a result of this. 

We are dangerously close to losing any gains that we have made within the last fifty years.  A similar circumstance is happening with women now where they may not be able to receive the medical care needed should they need to have an abortion.  I cannot say loudly enough that it is not the right of some old, rich white man making decisions for a woman’s body...decisions that will impact all women but poor women disproportionately.

But the Republican party represents something else that I don’t recognize.  Although Trump is not on the ticket for the primaries this year, Trumpism is.  More people are exposing misstatements and untruths about our judicial process simply because they may not like the results of our electoral process. And the ideology is simple…if you win, you’re fine.  But if your opponent win, accuse them of cheating without proof.  Kind of sounds like the thoughts of a spoiled child.  But this is where we are.

I’ve built a wonderful life with my husband.  We are just as happy now as the day we met some fourteen years ago…and I want to stay that way.  We are quiet.  We love our friends, our community, and our church.  We worship alongside one another and I would have it no other way.

I am discouraged and disappointed, but the thought of not participating in our electoral process never crossed my mind.  You get tired of the lying, cheating and misleading information.  You get tired of people trying to cast doubt on our electoral process, accusing us of doing the very thing that they are doing to remain in power.

Let me be clear…the Republicans do not have a platform to run on.  They have no policies that will benefit the American people.  What they do have is a means to cast serious doubt on an election process that is flawed, but not obsolete…unless they lie, attack and cheat.  They will do and say everything that will make you think that our electoral process doesn’t work…unless they win.

And in that lies my fear.  They stand a good chance of taking back the house and Senate.  And then everything will be in place to hand the presidency to Donald Trump whether the American People elect him or not.

And in all of this lies my fear.

~ J.L. Whitehead

 References:

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America_First_(policy)

(Comments are welcome at the appropriate section of this op-Ed) 

What is important and what is not

 

I think of myself as a peaceful man.  I went out of my way to avoid conflict until I realized that there are people out there who not only look for it, but they also thrive on it.  I learned this lesson in high school and it stuck with me all my life.

My estranged father gave me some advice that I will try to pass onto you.  I will not sugar coat what he said or how he said it because this is who he was.  What he said goes something like this:

            “Son, sometimes you gonna have to come out of your mouth with a bunch of muthaf@ckas to let some people know how you feel about some shite!”

He was right.

There are some people that only understand your anger and expression in some colorful language.  They don’t understand kindness, integrity, politeness, or gratitude. They look at these attributes as a weakness.

As a writer, I’ve enjoyed expressing myself in what I hope to be insightful.  You might not always agree with my perspective and that’s okay.  You don’t have to.

I’m all about peace and tranquility.  It seems like we don’t have enough of this.

As our world seems to continually be turned upside down by dictators as well as people that are in our governmental administrations who desire to do absolutely nothing to help the American people, we are reminded that we have better angels…each and every one of us.

We’re living in a time when we truly need to call on those better angels but sadly, many of us do not and will not.  We’d rather be ignorant in our areas of comfort rather than be well-informed outside of our respective bubbles.

I stand for peace…and love…and kindness.  But don’t get it twisted, if you come for me, my family, my husband, or anybody that I love…then you have a whole different side of my personality to deal with.

It is important to show love, compassion, kindness mixed with integrity and honesty.  Loving one another is easier than you think.  Maybe hatred is easy.  Maybe it isn’t.  I would like to believe that hatred although it is easy cannot and should not be the choice that we select simply because it is easy.

"I stand for peace…and love…and kindness.  But don’t get it twisted, if you come for me, my family, my husband, or anybody that I love…then you have a whole different side of my personality to deal with." ~ J.L. Whitehead

Loving is hard.  Sometimes it’s hard to love someone you know much less someone that you don’t.  At the end of the day, it doesn’t, nor should it matter.

We’re living in an era of war, violence, corruption, dishonesty, fear mongering, deceptions, hatred and lies.  We’re living in an era where wrong is right and right is wrong.

 Here’s the thing…remain true to your convictions. 

We have more than enough goodness in the world, but it bears mentioning that this is the voice that is mostly quiet.  We are not less than.  We are humble.

Right now, the louder voices are the ones that hate because they feel the need to spread their hatred.  They do it with impunity, especially when they see their constituents doing it as well.

We must stand up for all that is good and right with humanity.

Like I said earlier…I stand for love, peace, kindness, and compassion.

~J.L. Whitehead

 

 

 

2024 We can control what we become

 

Trump stands a significant chance of being elected to office in 2024…or rather, Trump stands a good change of stealing the election in 2024.  I say this because I see the Republican party setting up the components for stealing the election…we all can.

We see Trump supporting representatives being placed into roles that would assist the twice disgraced ex-president in being placed back into office in 2024.  And I fear that once placed into office, he will not be so willing to leave at the end of his four-year term.  Instead, he will dis-regard the norms that our founding fathers put into place and change our democracy into an autocracy.  Please let that sink in.

We will no longer have the option to elect our officials.  And this could not be a better time for the Republican party to seize office since many of us have grown tired of our democratic process.  We keep asking ourselves what is the point of going out to elect the official of our choice when it doesn’t matter?  Why should we stop fighting against the Republican party’s intentions when we know what those intentions entail?

 The only thing that can stop Trump from obtaining office is the Republican party itself.  It is time for all of us, Republicans and Democrats alike to do something about what is happening to the United States.  We need to understand that Donald Trump does not have an interest in governing for the American People.  We’ve seen this in his first term in office.  He simply wants the power of the highest office in the land.

Readers, even though the Republican party has morphed into the party of Trump, we must do whatever we can to protect our democracy.

Protect our democracy.

These are words that I am used to hearing every news cycle.  And yet, there is so much that can be done but isn’t being fulfilled.  We have grown so tired of our politics and Corona virus.  The two topics have worn us down.  We want to get back to a sense of normality and yet we can’t seem to find our way.  But our democracy should not be a reward for a small group of people that don’t reflect our values, if it is deemed a reward at all.

We know that the Republican party is viewed as a group of people that soundly rejects the notion that we can live as a multi-cultural society where everyone can share in the fruits of this land equally.

Greed and lust for power is at an all-time high.  Our elected government officials on the other side of the aisle seemed to have abandoned the principles that our country have been founded on.  Governance is not on their list of things that they will do when they seize power.  Addressing equality and fairness is not on their agenda.

I am not advocating for the Democratic party.  In so many ways, they have let us down and continue to do so.  At a time when the Democratic party needs to show unity, we have two senators who refuse to support the president’s agenda. This is not the time to promote your personal agenda.

The Republicans are gearing up for the election of a century.  The stakes are too high.  The election being held in 2024 is not simply a run to determine who gets to occupy the oval office.  This is a run for the state of democracy in this country.  We cannot afford to let one party that has no interest in governing obtain the highest office in the land.

I know you’re exhausted.  I am too.  But we cannot let democracy fall into the hands of a party that does not care about the rule of law.

We must care about what’s right and wrong.  The country is becoming more black and brown.  But that is not a problem even if a lesser denomination thinks that it is. Somehow, we must work together to make this country work for all of us.  The problem seems to be that a small fraction of us has no desire to do so.

And that’s a shame because it appears as if the smaller group is holding the larger group hostage which is counter our democratic processes.

One of the things that I know to be true is that we cannot make a group of people do what we would like them to do.  We cannot make a group of people think right or act like how we would like them to act.  The only thing we can do is step out on faith and make the right decision and do the right thing.  You may be tired of everything that we’ve gone through over the past two years.  However, we are fighting for more than just the right to right to vote.  We must come out in full force to protect our democratic norms.  We do not have time for someone that wants to be the head of this country but does not have out best interest at heart.  We cannot let someone occupy the Whitehouse when all they want to do is golf.  We cannot afford to let a smaller group of people take rule over the masses.

We simply can’t.

~ J.L. Whitehead

As always, please feel free to leave a comment below: