Call him “The Man” if you like, or “Mr. Bobo,” or “Mr. Whitey,” but no matter how you describe them (sorry womyn, only male sobriquets in this metaphor), White people, intoxicated by the beverage of Donald J. Trump’s hateful rhetorical vineyard, are now stumbling drunk and overplaying their hand like a mark in a floating poker game. They are setting themselves up for a big loss.
From so-called “Barbecue Becky” and all her cousins who called police all around the country to complain about Black folks doing routine things, to now this viral video of a group of boys from Kentucky’s Covington Catholic High School — gleefully surrounding a Native American elder; standing in his face as he drummed; chanting their own fake Indian cheer and “Tomahawk chop” gesture used at some sporting events; while shouting “Build the wall! Build the wall!” and “go back to the reservation” — White people, like these Covington boys like characters from Nobel Prize-winning author William Golding’s dystopian novel, “Lord of The Flies,” have taken this masquerade too far.
These Covington boys were wearing Trump’s red, signature “MAGA (Make America Great Again)” baseball caps. But they are mistaken about their future and their country’s future: there is no greatness ahead for the United States.
Like their cruel treatment of millions and millions of enslaved Africans over a span of 464 years, White America’s genocide against the Native people like Nathan Phillips from whom this continent was taken by force, are both crimes against humanity, and the reward for such behavior must be punishment, not reward, if the Prophets of Old and their Scriptures are to be believed.
White Dudes (often euphemistically referred to by me as “White Boys”) have taken to believing Trump’s press releases about “so much winning”— despite the facts that the government remains shutdown now, longer than ever before; the overall economy is headed to the toilet; and the president is a pathological liar who has told an average 15 untruths every day he’s been in office; and is facing a mountain of legal troubles. They believe him and they are acting like his lies are somehow true.
But it is toward the descendants of their slaves, and their Native hosts, to whom these White Boys are most cruel. Instead of showing gratitude to the people most responsible for this country’s wealth and greatness, White folks are quick to abuse, rather than praise, their greatest benefactors. They are mistakenly betting “all-in” on whiteness, which will prove to be a losing hand.
For the nearly 40 years since the Reagan Revolution, this country has been spending lights-out on weapons of war, and steadily lowering tax rates for the wealthy, so there is less and less money for “the common good.”
During the same period the world saw the Soviet Union bankrupt itself fighting a war it could not win in Afghanistan. Ironically, the U.S. has been bogged down in a war in Afghanistan for nearly 18 years, while China (another military adversary) has been slow to waste needless money on its armed forces, while overcoming this country economically. Now, after decades, the Chinese just launched their first aircraft carrier in 2018. The U.S. war hawks have at least a dozen such warships in its arsenal. Care to venture a guess as to which country is a safer place to live?
Both the Chinese and the Russians have their own enormous human rights challenges to live with, but none of their sins approach the genocide of a native population, or 400-plus years of the worst slavery known to man, as is the history of this country.
If the White Americans were as smart as they think they are, they would rein in these smug, Brett Kavanaugh-like, Covington Catholic-like, Donald J. Trump-like instincts among their Caucasian tribe, and try to teach those folks out of their caveman mentality into living at peace and in harmony with their neighbors.
Instead, they openly mock, abuse and reject those who are not white-skinned, in their midst or anywhere on the planet … to their own peril. They declare war on their southern border, never imagining that one day these Kentucky Catholic White Boys and all their MAGA allies may one day need allies from among the dark-skinned folks they treat with such open derision.
Too bad they never learned to treat other people the way they would like to be treated.
Mr. Bobo and his clan may not realize it yet, but the hand he’s playing in the worldwide, high-stakes poker game may not be as good as he thinks it is.
