Donald Trump has been in office for what has already seemed like a lifetime and it’s hard to believe it’s only been three months of his horror show. We never know what to expect from him as the days go by, but we who are members of the melanated world know that since the word means having non-white skin, we are not the ones for which any good is meant – no matter what good we do and no matter how good we are in what we do. But as Tina Turner always said, we just “keep on rolling”!
I was looking at the NFL draft a few nights ago, and we saw so many young Black men selected in the first round. I was so proud of all of them. The first person to get the congratulatory hug was the players’ moms! I loved it! There is just something special about our people succeeding when they’ve grown up with so much against them! I don’t mean just in sports, but in science, in education, in medicine, in the military — no matter where there is an opportunity. And they aren’t just DEI hires as the orange man and his crew falsely claim! Often white people get preferential treatment with far less talent. They rarely learn the meaning of being cheated out of something they deserve. Non-white people so often succeed through hard work and nearly always after racist treatment!
Others may not have learned this, but most of us in the Black community already know the orange man will come up with something to do as much damage as he can to us, but nothing good. One would think no melanated person would still be expecting something good to happen that is in our best interest. We’ve already seen enough to the contrary to know the truth.
If you think orange man has good intentions for us, you would be seriously misled — so I just can’t explain how the few who meet the definition are still sitting around trying to convince us how great he is and that all the turmoil he has already created is somehow benefitting us! If there is but one lesson we must learn, it is that we must begin to help ourselves!
One of the ways to do that is to listen to Black spokespersons like the Rev. Jamal Harrison Bryant, senior pastor of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church of Georgia, as he leads the selective buying campaign away from those insisting upon following in the footsteps of the orange man. We must begin to shop where we are appreciated — and it’s not at Target!
Among the destructive things the orange man has already done are the following:
• Alienated our allies throughout the world.
• Started the tariffs argument without knowing how tariffs work.
• Identified so closely with Russia’s President Putin that we no longer can tell the difference between the two.
• Thrown the Palestinian and Ukrainian people to the wolves.
• Allowed Elon Musk to take over everything to do with money. He’s selling Elon’s cars on the White House lawn, selling his MAGA hats from the Oval Office, and charging friends to hold the Easter Egg Hunt where I didn’t see the faces of melanated children this year. Maybe some were invited, but I haven’t met one who was invited!
• Threatened Harvard by cutting funds and threatened Costco, which treats us fairly.
• Pulled out of the Paris Climate Agreement.
• Attempted to eliminate birthright citizenship and has wrongly arrested, jailed and thrown innocent people out of the country.
• Sided with billionaires over everyday Americans.
• Signed executive orders to hurt marginalized groups.
• Had the nerve to classify former Vice President Kamala Harris as low IQ while she ran circles around him in the 2024 election.
• Had the nerve to classify Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett as a lowlife and low IQ. She has rightly challenged him to take an IQ test to settle the matter! She added, as for the lowlife part, he obviously meant to place his own name there!
• Shut down the Department of Education; closed USAID; fired thousands of hard-working Americans without cause.
• Used vulgar parts of his body to be kissed, while describing what world leaders are doing to meet with him about tariffs.
Many are wondering how somebody like this man could even be eligible to visit the White House with his record and who certainly has no business living there on your tax dollar and mine.
Williams is president of The Dick Gregory Society (www.thedickgregorysociety.org).
