The Isolation Diaries No. 29

“What makes you so strong, black man?...How is it that after all this country has done to you, you can still produce a Paul Robeson, a Thurgood Marshall, a Malcolm X, a Martin King, and a Ron McNair. What makes you so strong, black man?...This country has tried castration and lynching, miseducation and brainwashing.”  From Buck: A Memoir by MK Asante

We’ve seen it so many times before, an unarmed black man gunned down in cold blood by white men, whether police or civilians, because the men presumed the black man -- in this instance a black man jogging in a suburban neighborhood in Georgia -- had to be guilty of something. One legal authority in Georgia took his sweet time bringing charges against the father and son duo of Gregory and Travis McMichael for the killing of Ahmaud Arbery. It’s like 1877 and 1910 and 1920 and 1950 and 1965, and all the intervening years, when thousands of black men and women across the South were lynched for the crime of being black. 

Ahmaud Arbery is the latest victim of white supremacy. Will his killers be acquitted? If I had to put money down I’d say yes. It’s Georgia, after all. The killers are white, the victim is black, which makes the odds of justice being served slim. If the tables were reversed, if two black men stood accused of murdering a white jogger, arrests would have been made weeks ago and the accused would be sitting in jail awaiting trial and a predictable capital sentence. 

This country of ours is debased, truly debased. Every time I think it cannot sink lower, it does. I see Ahmaud Arbery’s mother, the look in her eyes as she spoke of her son, and it’s like seeing reflected the sorrow of centuries.  

Ahmaud Arbery is the latest victim of white supremacy. Will his killers be acquitted? If I had to put money down I’d say yes. It’s Georgia, after all. The killers are white, the victim is black, which makes the odds of justice being served slim.

John Stoehr is a writer for the Washington Monthly. Stoehr wrote a piece recently in which he ruminates about Donald J. Trump’s long-standing habit of walking away from his failures, whether businesses, marriages, or the Covid-19 pandemic. When the going gets sticky, Trump turns tail. Long time Trump watchers like David Cay Johnston aren’t surprised to see Trump declare premature victory over the pandemic. 

  

What is surprising is the silence from Democrats in Congress, and those few members of the GOP who haven’t entirely sold their souls to Trump. Ian Masters, host of Background Briefing, can’t understand why politicians are not clamoring for Trump’s resignation. If you watch a montage of Trump’s statements from January forward, can you come to any conclusion other than that Trump is a make-believe president, dangerously incompetent, mentally unfit, and a miserable failure? 

Oh Donald, you pathetic little man-boy, a pandemic is not like a spouse you can ditch when you grow tired of her. Covid-19 has staying power, and it doesn’t care about your wealth or properties or any of the shit you put your faith in, all it cares about is spreading from one host to the next. Covid-19 has the insatiable appetite of a Jeff Bezos or Mark Zuckerberg; it’s like a remorseless capitalist for whom there is never enough. 

If you watch a montage of Trump’s statements from January forward, can you come to any conclusion other than that Trump is a make-believe president, dangerously incompetent, mentally unfit, and a miserable failure? 

You’re a coward, Donald, and always have been. You never do your own dirty work, you always find others to carry your weight. When your country came calling, you dodged the draft like other rich, white, pampered pussies; you’re deathly afraid of intelligent women, and you fold your tent the moment anyone challenges your BS. You can’t handle being confronted with evidence of your inadequacy. You’re as insecure as any big man with a small dick. 

Today I’ll close with the words of Martin Luther King, Jr: “Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself.”