Tuesday, July 26, 2016

Horrible Candidates For President!

I can honestly say that this is the most conflicted I've ever felt about a presidential election in my life. Not because I can't decide who to vote for. But because I have an equal amount of disdain for each candidate. Both seem to be nothing more than phony, self-serving narcissists without an public service in their bodies. The only thing that both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are sincere about is being racists.

I continue to be amazed by African-Americans who choose to ignore racism in the name of supporting their candidate. In my opinion, you have any sense of self-worth, dignity, or pride, racism is, and always has been a "deal breaker". It doesn't matter whether you are a Republican, a Democrat, a liberal, an independent, or even a self-loathing negro. I refuse to overlook the slightest indication of racism. Let me be clear racism is so much more that using the N-word or hurling blatant insults rooted in stereotypes. It is also passing legislation like the 1994 crime bill passed by former President Bill Clinton, which had an adverse effect on the African-American community given the fact that black male incarceration went up 55%. The bill dramatically increased manditory sentencing for crack cocaine possession. The mandatory sentencing for powder cocaine was much less. Black men accounted for the vast majority of those arrested for crack cocaine. Then Senator Hillary Clinton voted to renew the bill multiple times and in a 1996 speech referred to the bill as a tool to used against "super predators", and even went so far as to say that these so-called super-predators were a generation of guilt- and compassion-free sociopaths who, in the interest of society, simply had to be contained. 

In the past few years both Hillary Clinton and former president Bill Clinton have admitted that the bill was "flawed". But their admission does nothing for those in the Black community who have been forced to serve lengthy prison terms because of their "mistake". I suppose it is possible to have a change of heart. But one must first have a heart to be changed.

The Republican candidate for president is a man like no other. Donald J. Trump. Trump is a pompous, arrogant charicticure of a man who is without a doubt the most unlikely Republican nominee in American history. So much so, that many prominent Republicans outwardly expressed their disdain for him. Rep. Ted Cruz even urged the faithful in his party to consider other choices during his controversial speech at the Republican National Convention, despite the fact that the vast majority of Republicans not only support Trump, but treat him as if he's some kind of demented hero. He says whatever is on his mind, and is probably the least subtle human being on the face of the earth. As a native New Yorker I have had the misfortune of having had a front row seat to Trumps antics for the vast majority of my life. Sometimes he's blatantly racist, other times he is an unapologetic misogynist, and at all times he is offensive in one way or another. In 1989 Trump took out a full page ad in a local New York "rag" calling for the death penalty for 5 African-American and Hispanic men during the Centrel Park jogger case. Years later, the young men were found not guilty. It were left up to Trump 5 innocent teenagers would have been executed. In addition to this,  Trump has made racist comments time and time again confirming his bigotry. The most telling of which is a comment that he made in May 2011, Trump pointed to the fact that an African American man, Randall Pinkett, won the fourth season of his NBC show “The Apprentice” as evidence that he is the “least racist person there is.” There is no such thing as being a little racist, or a little stupid.

PR

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