Page 2 The Skanner January 11, 2017
Challenging People to Shape
a Better Future Now
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Martin Luther King, Jr.
BREAKFAST
Jan. 16, 2017
Opinion
Trumpism and White Tribalism Cannot Prevail
O
n the eve of the new
Trump era of leader-
ship, danger lurks.
Emboldened
by
Trump’s win and a series of
stunning other victories in
recent elections by the “alt-
right,” tea party, conservative
and ultra-conservative move-
ments, in this country and in
Europe, white tribalists are
openly advocating the most
dangerous ideas since the
days of Wisconsin Sen. Joe
McCarthy in the 1950s.
Trump and some of his in-
ner circle of advisers speak in
the most coarse and insensi-
tive language, to put it mildly.
Carl Paladino, an adviser to
the president-elect, is typical.
When asked what he would
like to happen in 2017 he said
he hopes President Barack
Obama “catches mad cow dis-
ease” and dies after having
sexual relations with a Here-
ford cow.
When asked what he would
like to see go away, Paladino, a
former Republican New York
gubernatorial candidate, said
he wanted First Lady Michelle
Obama to “return to being a
male and [be]let loose in the
outback of Zimbabwe where
she lives comfortably in a
cave with Maxie the gorilla.”
Really! Really. That is repre-
hensible.
Paladino’s comments were
in response to a survey by
weekly magazine Artvoice,
according The Washington
Post’s Abby Phillip. Paladi-
Askia
Muhammad
NNPA
Columnist
no last met with the presi-
dent-elect in early December
at Trump Tower in New York
City.
Trump is no slouch, rhetori-
cally or Twitter-wise. His per-
sonal strategy may be what
one historian calls Richard
“
bilizing governments in Afri-
ca, Asia and Latin America.
In fact, all that Founding Fa-
thers stuff is just stuff. They
were slave owners, whose
very presence in slave quar-
ters struck unspeakable
terror in the hearts of their
victims. There was no social
media to alarm the public.
The murderers and lynch-
ers would sometimes stake
the heads of the victims as a
warning to other slaves not to
rise up against their masters.
Despite the frequent dis-
avowals of the incoming
design that conveys how close
the world is to destroying its
civilization with dangerous
technologies of their own
making,” including nuclear
weapons, climate-changing
technologies,
biotechnolo-
gies and cybertechnology
that could “inflict irrevocable
harm…to our way of life and
to the planet.”
“The probability of glob-
al catastrophe is very high,”
the scientists said. “And the
actions needed to reduce the
risks of disaster must be tak-
en very soon. That probabil-
ity has not been reduced.
The clock ticks. Global
danger looms. Wise lead-
ers should act immediate-
ly.”
But this country’s great-
est liability is the sins of
its bloody past. Millions
and millions of souls kid-
napped from Africa and made
slaves. Their three centuries
of free labor made this coun-
try rich. That slave trade and
its aftermath constitute a
“crime against humanity.”
And then there is the geno-
cide committed against the
native people whose land
the European settlers and
slave traders stole. That un-
conscionable act constitutes
genocide. Those crimes were
stopped before. They will not
prevail in the 21st century, no
matter what Donald Trump
and whatever combination of
four-stars and billionaires he
can assemble around himself.
Folks who yearn for the Trumpian,
“Ozzie and Harriet” world of White
comfort within White privilege don’t
take into account that what they wish
for is wicked and cannot stand
Nixon’s “Mad Dog” technique.
Nixon wanted it known that
he might do anything, like a
mad dog, including the use
nuclear weapons, in order to
intimidate concessions out
of the U.S. adversary in Viet-
nam.
Russia? China? Arms race?
Bring it on, Trump says.
Sadly, folks who yearn for
the Trumpian, “Ozzie and
Harriet” world of White com-
fort within White privilege
don’t take into account that
what they wish for is wicked
and cannot stand. It was wick-
ed in “Ozzie and Harriet” days
when this country was desta-
Trump administration, I don’t
believe Trump and his crew
even have good intentions for
the future, for world peace or
for national security.
Which brings us to this mo-
ment. Even before taking any
of the belligerence of Trump
into account, a group of cyn-
ics, philosophers and other
intellectuals who publishes
“The Bulletin of the Atomic
Scientists” say that human
life as we know it is just min-
utes from oblivion, according
to their “Doomsday Clock.”
The Doomsday Clock is de-
scribed by its creators as “an
internationally recognized