We Haven't Overcome Squat

The news has recently been rife with reprehensible racist comments, more notably from current right-wing favorite Cliven Bundy and former Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling. In this day and age, they both rightfully deserve to be ostracized for their words; after all, old dogs cannot learn new tricks because they choose not to. Sports fans know Sterling’s long history of bigotry given the multiple lawsuits from former employees and the US Justice Department. Yet no one cared to pay attention to a man who routinely brought women to the player’s locker room subjugating them to treatment of chattel slavery regarding of what he would say next. Anytime is an inopportune moment for racist comments – and for those remarks to come out during the franchise’s best NBA playoff season is not only embarrassing, but also time for the man to depart from the limelight. Strangely, his girlfriend who recorded the ten minute rant before selling it to TMZ is biracial – Mexican and black. Asking her to remove herself from minorities when is part of two groups was beyond ridiculous; had she complied, the woman would have been little more than a modern day mammy.

Bundy is a more direct case of deep-seated racism – and what I call a typical Republican voter. Allow me to clarify the statement: Not all Republicans are racist, but the majority of racists do vote Republican. From the onset, the rancher exhibited his prejudices for all to see after the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) backed off its threats to confiscate his land due to unpaid taxes. Once Fox News provided him the platform to open his mouth, what we saw was an unrepentant bigot too ignorant to realize his public shaming. Do we know people like Cliven Bundy? Yes, we do – I have attended school with them, worked with them, rented apartments from them, and met them through the daughters I dated before they were disowned. He was brazen enough to articulate his views of a world vastly different yet eerily similar to his own. How? Bundy hates federal subsidies like food stamps, yet he received grasslands at below-market values; he is also a benefactor of the Hoover Dam – as are all Clark County, Nevada residents, and indirectly was rewarded by the mining operations in the Silver State. How his actions contradict conservative dogma are the following: 1)using land without paying for it [theft]; and 2)disrespecting law enforcement [aren’t they the law and order people?] In turn, he is no better than the welfare queens he rails so vehemently against – a moocher, a taker. To further expand his comments about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., he may have gotten further had not one of Bundy’s ilk assassinated him some thirty-six years ago April 4. My response to his feigning ignorance:  Talk to us like normal human beings. Just because I’m a bit darker doesn’t mean I am less a man. Also, call me boy and see what happens.

Don’t get it twisted, we haven’t overcome squat.

Even here in Saline County, the county Democratic Party cannot get out of its own way. In a move normally associated with the county Republicans two blocks away, the Democrats invited all of its gubernatorial candidates to speak except for one: Doc Bryant. Why was this? Oversight? Long shot to challenge Mike Ross? Race? All the news release stated was a knock-kneed apology for the pass from party leaders. Sundown County never loved us, quoting Drake proving that they are no more accepting (in my eyes) than the other major political party in the area.

When I say we haven’t overcome squat, I mean all of the advances from our elders are going by the wayside thanks to complacency. People want to vote but must now carry ID and hours at the polls are reduced, with days eliminated. Although I support affirmative action at its core as I have been passed over routinely for promotions and improperly rewarded only to see my ideas implemented later within policy. While we are more apt to work, play, and eat together, date and marry each other, we are more prone to distractions meant to separate us including crass materialism, reality shows, carnal behaviors, etc. I cannot change every mind to become more inclusive and valuing of one another by myself, nor should that expectation that so many have of certain men to be perfect in order to be loved. I only ask that we try.