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America Rarely Lets You Forget That You’re Black

America Rarely Lets You Forget That You’re Black

So I had myself an epiphany.

Actually, that’s not quite the right word. An epiphany is a moment of sudden clarity, but mine rolled in slowly, like dawn on a crystal morning.

I’m not sure when it began. Maybe it was in 2012 when Trayvon Martin was killed and much of America held him guilty of his own murder. Maybe it was in 2013 when the Voting Rights Act was eviscerated and states began hatching schemes to suppress the African-American vote. Maybe it was on Election Day. Maybe it was a few weeks later, when a South Carolina jury deadlocked because the panel — most of them white — could not agree that it was a crime for a police officer to shoot an unarmed black man in the back. Could not agree, even though they saw it on video.

I can’t say exactly when it was. All I know is that the dawn broke and I realized I had forgotten something.

I had forgotten that I am black.

Yes, I know what the mirror says. And yes, I’ve always known African Americans face challenges — discrimination in health, housing, hiring, and a racially biased system of “justice,” to name a few. But I think at some level, I had also grown comfortable in a nation paced by Oprah, LeBron, Beyonce, and Barack. The old mantra of black progress — two steps forward, one step back — had come to feel … abstract, something you said, but forgot to believe.

So when we hit this season of reversal, I was more surprised than I should have been. I had forgotten about being black. Meaning, I had forgotten that for us, setback is nothing new.

Right after the election, as I was grappling with this, I chanced to see this young black woman — Melissa “Lizzo” Jefferson — on “Full Frontal With Samantha Bee,” and she performed “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” also known as the “Negro National Anthem.” Something about that song always gets to me. Something about it always stirs unseen forces, shifts something heavy in my soul.

“Lift Every Voice” was written by James Weldon Johnson in 1900. That was 23 years after the Republicans sold out newly freed slaves, resolving a disputed election by striking a backroom deal that made Rutherford B. Hayes president on condition he withdraw from the South federal troops who had safeguarded African-American rights and lives since the end of the Civil War. It was five years after the first “grandfather clause” disenfranchised former slaves by denying the ballot to anyone whose grandfather did not vote. It was four years after the Supreme Court blessed segregation.

And it was a year in which 106 African Americans were lynched — a routine number for that era.

Yet in the midst of that American hell, here was Johnson, exhorting his people to joy.

“Lift every voice and sing

Till Earth and heaven ring

Ring with the harmonies of liberty

Let our rejoicing rise

High as the listening skies

Let it resound,

Loud as the rolling sea.”

Lord, what did it take to sing that song back then?

I pondered that as the year deepened into December, as Christmas came and went, as the ball dropped in Times Square. Now here it is Black History Month, and I know again what I had somehow forgotten.

I had forgotten that we’ve been here before, that our history is a litany of people pushing us back after every forward step. I had forgotten that it long ago taught us how to weave laughter from a moan of pain, make a meal out of the hog’s entrails, climb when you cannot see the stairs, and endure.

I had forgotten that America is still America — and I am still black.

But it won’t happen again.

IMAGE: U.S. President Barack Obama (R) is joined onstage by first lady Michelle Obama and daughter Malia, after his farewell address in Chicago, Illinois, U.S. January 10, 2017. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

From Impossible To Inevitable: Trump Must Choose His Veep

From Impossible To Inevitable: Trump Must Choose His Veep

The media often act like we have a sacred duty to exaggerate. We believe that if something is worth doing, it is worth overdoing.

Thus, in just a few short months, we have gone from saying it is impossible for Donald Trump to win the Republican nomination to saying it is inevitable that Donald Trump will win the Republican nomination.

Because of this, I have decided to dispense with the remaining primaries and caucuses, stories about superdelegates, brokered conventions and the usual yada yada and get right down to it:

Who will Trump choose as his running mate?

Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, who has one of the longest titles in politics — professor of the practice of public policy communication, Sol Price School of Public Policy at the University of Southern California — put her finger right on it.

“The Donald’s first choice is The Donald,” she said.

But there are constitutional problems with this, and besides, vice presidents are convenient to have around in case you need someone to attend a funeral.

So I contacted 22 people, which is 22 more people than I usually contact for a column, to ask them their predictions for Trump’s running mate.

Some did not want to play.

“Anyone who would run with Trump is too vile for me to think about,” said Garry Wills, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and the author of more than 40 books.

Others were downright apocalyptic.

“My first job was with Jesse Helms,” said Juleanna Glover, presenting her conservative credentials. “I lived with Phyllis Schlafly. I worked for Dan Quayle, George W. Bush, Bill Kristol, Steve Forbes, Rudy Giuliani, Dick Cheney and spent half my career with John Ashcroft.”

And her views on Trump?

“He is inherently dangerous to the national interest,” she said. “Trump as the nominee is destructive, and anyone who would seriously consider being his vice president is an accomplice to that destruction.”

Tom Rath, on the other hand, was willing to provide a list. Rath is one of the most respected political operatives in the Republican Party and has served as a senior national adviser to the presidential campaigns of Howard Baker, Robert Dole, Lamar Alexander, George W. Bush, Mitt Romney and John Kasich.

“Far be it from me to give Trump advice,” he said and then listed 13 suggestions “in no particular order.” I have included some with descriptions in case not every name rings a bell:

–Jeff Immelt: chairman of the board and CEO of General Electric

–John Thune: Republican senator from South Dakota

–Jeb Bush: Oh, c’mon, you didn’t forget that fast.

–Joe Scarborough with or without Mika Brzezinski: two politically influential MSNBC superstars who could take turns every other month

–Charlie Baker: Republican governor of Massachusetts

–Roger Goodell: commissioner of the National Football League

–Tim Scott: Republican senator from South Carolina and the first African-American in U.S. history to be elected both to the House and Senate

–Oprah Winfrey: Born into poverty in Mississippi, she became a talk-show host, actress, producer, author and multibillionaire philanthropist. She gave me an interview when she came to Chicago to start a TV talk show in 1984. At the time, I was probably better known in Chicago than she was. That lasted about five minutes.

In June 2015, Trump himself told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos that he wanted Oprah as his running mate. “I think we’d win easily, actually,” he said. “I like Oprah. I mean, is that supposed to be a bad thing? I don’t think so.”

But could Oprah, a big backer of Barack Obama, be selected by the Republican National Convention? “Over the years, I have voted for as many Republicans as I have Democrats,” Oprah told a crowd in December 2007 when she announced her endorsement of Obama. “This isn’t about partisanship for me. This is very, very personal.”

When Obama spoke to the crowd, he asked: “You want Oprah as vice president?”

The crowd roared. “That would be a demotion, you understand that?” Obama said.

While it might be close, I am guessing the delegates to the Republican convention would go along with Oprah as vice president, if only in the hope that she would give each of them a Pontiac.

Bill McInturff, a Republican pollster, said: “I assume Trump would double-down on his positioning, not pick anyone with a career in elected politics, so, someone with significant military experience seems like one possibility.”

Democratic crisis communications expert Chris Lehane said: “He shouldn’t/wouldn’t look for balance as that would undermine the brand.

“First, military background. If Curtis Lemay were available, he would be perfect. (Inconveniently, Lemay died in 1990.)

“Second, the anti-pol. Gov. Paul LePage of Maine is a poor man’s Trump.

“Third, sports figure. Peyton Manning (quarterback of the Denver Broncos) may be retiring.”

While most analysts are careful to hedge their bets just in case they turn out to be wrong, Charlie Cook is not most analysts. “I don’t believe that Trump will ultimately be the Republican nominee,” he told me.

“Trump’s chances of winning a general election are so small that even if he did, the odds of his administration being a disaster are huge. So for a young and ambitious Republican, hitching your wagon to his horse could well be a career-ender.”

Cook said, “A lot of top-tier names and talent are off the table.”

“I question why any major figure or rising star in the party would want to become joined at the hip with Donald Trump,” said Cook. “That means he is likely to get a second- or third-tier person.”

Which makes my prediction perfect: She has run for the job before. She knows how to debate and give a good convention speech. And she has even invented her own language.

When she endorsed Trump on Jan. 20 at Iowa State University, she said: “Trump’s candidacy. It has exposed not just that tragic the ramifications of that betrayal of the transformation of our country, but too, he has exposed the complicity on both sides of the aisle that has enabled it, OK?”

OK. And that’s right. My guess is that Trump will select Sarah Palin as his running mate.

Why? Because she makes Trump sound like a genius.

Roger Simon is Politico’s chief political columnist. His new e-book, “Reckoning: Campaign 2012 and the Fight for the Soul of America,” can be found on Amazon.com, BN.com and iTunes. To find out more about Roger Simon and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Web page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2016 CREATORS.COM

Photo: Donald Trump (R) thanks the crowd after receiving Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s endorsement at a rally at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa January 19, 2016. REUTERS/Mark Kauzlarich 

‘Browning Of America’ Is Tearing The GOP Apart

‘Browning Of America’ Is Tearing The GOP Apart

Before Pope Francis spoke a single word at the Mexican border, Donald Trump had — quite predictably — denounced the pontiff’s message. The real estate mogul and former reality-TV star has built his campaign for the GOP presidential nomination on an ugly nativism, so the moment was tailor-made for him.

The counter-messaging only escalated after the pontiff told reporters that anyone who wants to build a border wall, as Trump has infamously proposed, “is not Christian.” That prompted a retort from Trump, of course: “For a religious leader to question a person’s faith is disgraceful,” he said.
(If the pontiff’s remarks were recorded correctly, he didn’t say Trump isn’t “a” Christian. In other words, he didn’t question the faith to which Trump ascribes; rather, the pope described Trump’s behavior as failing to follow Christian principles.)

Trump-isms notwithstanding, Pope Francis couldn’t have picked a better moment for his message of compassion toward migrants. This presidential campaign season has revealed some unseemly passions roiling in the American electorate — especially on the right; those resentments needed the criticism of an authority figure outside elective politics. Who better than the pope?
Concluding his swing through Mexico with a pointed stop at the border city of Juarez, Pope Francis bemoaned the global “human tragedy” that forces people to risk death to try to gain sanctuary in safer places. He called migrants “the brothers and sisters of those expelled by poverty and violence, by drug trafficking and criminal organizations.”

Not that the pope’s call for charity is likely to have an immediate calming effect. In this country, the conservative electorate is in the midst of a massive meltdown over the nation’s changing demographics. Make no mistake about it: Stagnant wages and economic uncertainty have fueled the fires of outrage, but the flames were lit by a deep-seated resentment over a slow-moving but obvious cultural shift as white Americans slide toward losing their majority status.

The election of President Barack Obama is among the more striking signs of that shift, but there are others: Among the wealthiest and most influential pop culture figures are two black women known only by their first names, Oprah and Beyonce. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which hands out the Oscars, has been hit by protests over its lack of diversity. Interracial couples, and their kids, are routinely featured in television commercials for common household products.

But the “browning of America,” as some social scientists have called it, has not been propelled by growing numbers of native-born blacks, but rather by increasing numbers of immigrants from Asia, Africa and the rest of the Americas. Of those, Latinos constitute the largest and most visible group. That helps to explain why immigration has occupied a central place in this presidential campaign — and why it threatens to tear apart the Republican Party.

Its leaders have spent decades pandering to the fears of those white Americans who are least comfortable with changes in the social and cultural hierarchy. Instead of displaying a leadership that might have eased the anxiety of white conservatives, GOP candidates broadened the old “Southern strategy” to disparage not only native-born black Americans but also immigrants of color.

Now, those GOP voters are displaying a xenophobia that has pushed the party even further to the right — and which threatens to alienate voters of color for decades to come. Even as Republican strategists tear their hair out over the hateful tone emanating from the campaign trail, the candidates, with a couple of exceptions, keep up their harsh rhetoric. While The Donald has displayed the most outrageous bigotry, including a call to bar all Muslims from entry, his rivals have tried not to be out-Trumped. Sen. Marco Rubio, for example, has disavowed a plan, one he once endorsed, to grant legal status to undocumented workers.

President Obama and the Democratic contenders, both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, have pushed back against the biases oozing from the GOP hustings, but they have no credibility with ultraconservative voters. Perhaps there are still a few of them who will be swayed by the loving and generous message of Pope Francis.

(Cynthia Tucker won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary in 2007. She can be reached at cynthia@cynthiatucker.com.)

COPYRIGHT 2016 CYNTHIA TUCKER
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Photo: Pope Francis blesses the United States while standing next to a wooden cross at the border between Mexico and the U.S. in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico February 17, 2016.  REUTERS/Edgard Garrido