Racial Reconciliation

Slaps and Kisses: Black Voters Beware

/ J. A. Faulkerson / Leave a comment

Last week, I watched as 12 jurors in Donald J. Trump’s election fraud trial convicted him on all 34 counts. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for United States president, is now a convicted felon. But to hear him tell it, this historic trial was nothing more than a blip on the screen.

His now being a convicted felon is significant, though.

Monumental really.

It is something that has never been seen before, at least in these United States of America.

The last person who was under this type of scrutiny was former president Richard Nixon, who submitted his resignation from the post before his term ended. Nixon was ultimately pardoned by his predecessor, Gerald Ford.

But what does it say about us, the Republican Party really, when you allow a man who is also facing legal jeopardy in Georgia and Florida, to even be allowed to take a third shot at the presidency, at being the Leader of the Free World?

What does it say about us when participants in the Fake Electors Scheme (in support of Donald J. Trump’s Stop the Steal Campaign) are being indicted in states like Wisconsin and Nevada?

What does it say about us when the insurrectionists who stormed the U. S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 are serving jail sentences while the person who lit the fuse, Donald J. Trump, is taking a third shot at the presidency, at becoming the Leader of the Free World?

It says more of us need to see the writing on the wall. Donald J. Trump and his conservative Republican acolytes are trying to play the U. S. electorate for fools, make us suspend belief in what our ears are hearing, our eyes are seeing.

Trump and his conservative Republican acolytes are quick to say that we Black people should more closely identify with Trump because U. S. jurisprudence has never been on our side. Disproportionately, Black Americans have been incarcerated at higher rates than any other racial/ethnic group.

Last I checked, though, Donald J. Trump isn’t Black, he’s white. As a white man, he is the beneficiary of unmerited privilege, while Black people have been browbeaten by past slavery, ongoing oppression and micro-aggressions since our Black African ancestors arrived in captivity on that Virginia shore in 1619.

So, why is he equating his real crimes with the plights of Black Americans and Black American criminal defendants?

Because the self-proclaimed emperor is now wearing no clothes.

In short, his fraudulent behavior is now on full display, and he’s afraid.

He seemingly wants us Black people to use our votes on November 5, 2024 to save him from being convicted and incarcerated. This desire seemingly is at the forefront of his mind, even though he and his conservative Republican acolytes were the proponents of campaigns that successfully terminated Affirmative Action, eliminated diversity, equity and inclusion programs, and banned books written by Black American writers from public schools and libraries. Ultimately, Donald J. Trump and conservative Republicans are undeniably endeavoring to dictate what we Black Americans can and cannot say about white supremacy, racism, prejudice and discrimination.

If you’re Black, this is all you need to know. Donald J. Trump does not have, and has never had, our best interests at heart. This is nothing more than another one of his con jobs. Consequently, any Black person voting for him on November 5, 2024 should have their Black Card revoked.

A person should never be rewarded with a kiss on the cheek when they’re violently and repeatedly slapping you across the face.

Donald J. Trump knows winning the presidency will give him the power to make his federal charges go away. However, he will still have to answer for his state-level crimes in Georgia, where he tried to pressure state officials to find one more vote than he needed to receive the state’s Electoral College votes.

Again, we Black Americans have been about the business of saving the nation’s soul since our Black African ancestors’ 1619 arrival. We, more than any other racial/ethnic group, want the USA to live up to its creed, that all men and women are created equal, that we have inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. A historical analysis reveals that we have fought back against our enslavement and oppression both violently and nonviolently. At the end of the day, the unconditional love and neighborly compassion in our hearts allows us to remain nonviolently resolute in our quest to work with like-minded individuals to create a more perfect union.

On November 5, 2024, let’s use our voting power to excise the cancer that is Donald J. Trump and irresponsible, conservative Republican leaders from our body politic.

Democracy and the Rule of Law must prevail.

No human being is above man’s law…or God’s law.

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“RETREAT OF THE CONQUERING OPPRESSOR” | A Poem by J. A. Faulkerson

/ J. A. Faulkerson / Leave a comment

To discover more titles by J. A. Faulkerson, visit https://jafaulkerson.com/store/.

You came.

You saw.

You conquered.

You oppressed.

But now you’re reeling, from the impactful but nonviolent haymakers thrown in the 50s and 60s by Rosa Parks, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Mamie Till-Bradley, John F. Kennedy,, Nina Simone, Malcolm X, Ruby Bridges, Lyndon B. Johnson and others.

You, Conquering Oppressor, are trying to hide your depraved state of mind…

….body…

…and soul…

…by telling anyone who will listen that your actions were, and continue to be, permissible because of our skin color, our allegedly being members of a subordinate and inferior caste.

But all you’re doing now is hiding your crimes, the atrocities you committed, and continue to commit, against other human beings.

You know full well these crimes were, and are being, committed in the light of day to advance your priorities, enrich yourself and individuals that look like you, the ones who wear their whiteness like a badge of honor. 

We see you.

Or better said, we see right through you, a soul devoid of compassion, an unwillingness to embrace us, your more compassionate neighbors.

Do you ask yourself why we, your compassionate neighbors, remain compassionate, neighborly? 

Why we default to nonviolence when it is within our right to violently lash out at you?

I’ll tell you why.

We love you.

As siblings bound together by the blood of the risen Messiah, Jesus Christ.

And because our Lord and Savior is both merciful and transformative, we believe you have the capacity to change for the better.

Better means you, Conquering Oppressor, will come to recognize that your unrighteous acts are driven by hatred, buoyed by a superiority complex.

Better means you, Conquering Oppressor, cannot go it alone, that creating a more perfect union is an all-hands-on-deck proposition.

Better means you, Conquering Oppressor, must develop the capacity to love again, to be faithful to our God, kind to your neighbors.

We see that you’re repulsed by what we’re saying. 

We see that you want to retreat to the silo that prevents you from hearing the wise counsel of the compassionate and the neighborly.

But actions speak louder than words. 

That’s why we stand before you now, arms spread wide, waiting for you to step forward into our hearty embrace.

We see those tears, a testament to your newfound compassion wanting to see the light of day.

Take that first step, toward us, your compassionate neighbors.

Accept this kiss to your cheek as I accept the one you’re applying to mine.

Redemption feels good, doesn’t it?

Welcome to God’s More Perfect Union.

Copyright 2024 by Jeffery A. Faulkerson. All rights reserved.

To discover more titles by J. A. Faulkerson, visit https://jafaulkerson.com/store/.

A Reconciled Nation of Equals

/ J. A. Faulkerson / Leave a comment

Clint Smith’s book How the Word Is Passed bids readers to reckon with the history of slavery across America, but after I read it, I concluded that it does so much more.  In an era in which white American conservatives are championing campaigns to suppress black American history and stymie contemporary black American progress, it is a gut-check reminder that Black Americans’ struggle for life, liberty and happiness is far from over.  If anything, it’s only the beginning.

Smith trope’s is important to remembering the treacherous road we Americans have traversed just to get to a place where we can even consider the importance of treating each other with decency and respect, regardless of skin color.  While it is true that white Americans subjugated black Americans during the Transatlantic Slave Trade and the post-Reconstruction Jim Crow era, and the governmental leaders of these bygone eras tried to make amends for this original sin through the passage of legislation, the fact still remains that too many contemporary white Americans believe that enough has been done to correct their white American ancestors’ original sin. 

What Clint Smith makes clear in How the Word Is Passed is that today’s unenlightened segment of the white American majority is committed to perpetrating campaigns designed to suppress inconvenient truths about the Transatlantic Slave Trade and the passage of post-Reconstruction Jim Crow laws.  This historical suppression is in line with the conservative Republican Party’s voter suppression in states controlled by Republican governors and legislatures.  And they’re using the removal of Confederate statues in places like Richmond and Charlottesville to condition white Americans to rally around whiteness by falsely telling them that the removal of these statues is an affront to what their white American ancestors have built, these United States of America. 

But if they would start taking this line of thinking a few steps further, and understand what Clint Smith is getting at when he explains to us how the word is passed, they would recognize that the true change-makers and entrepreneurs were the enslaved Blacks whose uncompensated labor laid the foundation for what this nation is becoming, a more perfect union.  In other words, the United States of America was built on the backs of enslaved black Americans.  And the only way to truly perfect this union is to acknowledge their white American ancestors’ crimes against other human beings (black Africans), offer contemporary black Americans an apology for their white American ancestors’ crimes against other human beings (black Africans), and compensate the descendants of enslaved black Africans for the next 400 years through reparations.  More importantly, though, contemporary white Americans must believe wholeheartedly that all men, humans really, “are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Know this, the word that my black African ancestors passed to members of the contemporary Black American Diaspora is that we should use our righteous words and deeds to light the way to the kind of enlightenment that allows all of us to become a reconciled nation of equals.