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Tina Turner, who died last month, was an pioneer and an artist who personified the word innovative.

Like her contemporary, Little Richard, Tina Turner brought an uncompromised strand of Black Southern music, the sound of the Chitlin’ Circuit itself, into the lives of teenagers and adults around the globe. She garnered appeal across racial boundaries at a time when the nation was highly segregated, and she helped pave the way for future female artists such as Gloria Gaynor, Beyonce, Melissa Etheridge, Janis Joplin, Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey and others.

The younger of two sisters children born on November 26, 1939 in Brownsville, Tennessee, Anna Mae Bullock was a child of the Great Depression. She grew up in a segregated, Jim Crow environment where racism, poverty, and a torrential downpour of other social impositions, indignities and injustices were endemic.

Turner found an escape in the world of music. While race and gender were defining factors in her identity, sexuality helped shape her career in complex ways.

Many of her songs focused on pursuing intensely sexual themes of men (and in some case, women) who were powerful, abusive, manipulative and bereft of any cogent level of humanity. It was in these songs that her pain manifested itself as she cried out and demanded respect. Through it all, her radically flamboyant public persona upended mores and customs on how women entertainers should present themselves. Her “I am me, I am here, deal with it,” defiant message inspired many of her peers.

Long before it was socially acceptable for female artists to do so, Turner daringly and unapologetically pushed the boundaries of sexuality. In the genesis of her career, her skin tight outfits (inspired by the cartoon character Sheena of the Jungle) and garish clothes coupled were a revelation to audiences more accustomed to female entertainers who dressed in a more conventional style.

Turner brazenly twisted, hopped, hollered, tapped and gyrated in front of large groups. While she could never be easily defined, demonstrating such an unrestrained degree of sexually charged behavior was a quite audacious stance to take, particularly for female artist in the early to mid 1960s.

The period of the mid-1970s to early 1980s was challenging for the female rock pioneer. The abuse she was enduring from her husband, Ike Turner, continued. Physically and emotionally, she was in a psychological funk. To many, she was viewed as an artist whose time had passed. Various attempts at comebacks during this period of her life were met with minimal success.

What a difference a decade made! The 1980s returned Tina Turner into the spotlight with a number of profitable ventures for the then 40ish entertainer. Her 1984 hit, “What’s Love Got to Do With It?” was a chart-topping megahit. Her album “Private Dancer,” was a multi-million seller, introducing her to a new generation of fans as well. Her massively incredible career comeback likely inspired other artists, such as Jefferson Starship, Aretha Franklin, and Cher to reestablish their careers and begin touring again.

Turner was bold, daring, raw, visionary, and fearless in a way that few artists dared to be. While her influence and presence may be more limited among younger millennials and generation Z, she was one of the most distinctive, definitive, and pioneering voices ever produced in the world of music. Her music can be described as many things, but as was the case with her extraordinary life, it was anything but dull.

She was “simply the best.” May she rest in peace.

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Copyright 2023 Elwood Watson, distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate

Elwood Watson is a professor of history, Black studies, and gender and sexuality studies at East Tennessee State University. He is also an author and public speaker.

The Jezebel of the Republican Party is at it again.

Just when you thought that she could not get any more disingenuous and despicable, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene engaged in some wild intellectual dishonesty by accusing New York Democratic Rep. Jamaal Bowman of calling her the equivalent of the N-word. She also accused him of being “physically threatening” and deviously concocted an entire slew of falsehoods.

For those of who are unaware, last week both Bowman and Greene engaged in what could be most aptly described a verbal political spitfire on the steps of the U.S. Capitol.

“The party’s hanging by a thread!” Bowman repeatedly cried out.

“Impeach Biden!” Greene said in response at one point.

At another point, Bowman demanded, “No more QAnon,” and Greene replied, “No more CNN.”

Later Bowman pleaded, “Do something about guns!” Greene retorted, “Right, so close the border!”

To be sure, the language was heated (as is the case with most political rhetoric today). But Greene’s hyperbolic comments about the exchange with Bowman suggested something awful had occurred. Later, at a news conference, she said Bowman was “yelling, shouting, raising his voice, he was aggressive, his physical mannerisms are aggressive.”

“I feel threatened by him,” she added.

Anyone who has seen video of the exchange quickly realizes it betrays Greene’s blatant falsehoods. Both parties were engaged in volume at roughly the same decibels. Yes, Bowman was heckling her. Could his behavior be seen as somewhat annoying? Yes. But the same could be said for Green.

Was he trying to physically intimidate her? Absolutely not!

Greene later had the audacity to make this absurd statement: “I will tell you what’s on video is Jamaal Bowman shouting at the top of his lungs, cursing, calling me a horrible — calling me a white supremacist, which I take great offense to,” she said. “That’s like calling a person of color the N-word, which should never happen. Calling me a white supremacist is equal to that. That is wrong.”

This should be offensive to any reasonable person, but it is a particular affront to Black people. The N-word is the most heinous slur in the English language. It serves as the signature linguistic lexicon of white oppression of Black Americans. In fact, there is not another word that has its equivalent degree of degradation, denigration, dehumanization and demoralization.

The word was employed mercilessly by those who often embedded deep seeded hatred and enmity to men and women of African descent. It was a term used by others as they arrogantly exploited a group of humans, depriving them of their basic human dignity and culture. The same people were treated as subhuman, and in many cases not much better than animals. They were viewed as human chattel. The result of such lingering indignities remain with us today in the 21st century.

Greene was strongly aware her reaction would quickly be believed and spread by her right-wing MAGA supporters, garnering intense racial hostility toward congressmen Bowman. A vulnerable white woman in direct danger, who needs protection from a large, violent, and possibly rapacious black man, or so the story goes.

No reasonable person can dispute the fact that Bowman vs. Greene is an incident about racism. But it is also a story that represents white bigotry toward Black and other non-white people. It is an incident that vehemently personifies how white people can — and often do — manipulate and exploit their social stations in life in an effort to put people of color “in their place,” so to speak.

A white woman’s description of events, no matter how distorted or blatantly false, will likely be believed over the words of their non-white counterparts, at least by a large group of people. It is the classic, unfiltered, textbook definition of white supremacy and white privilege, pure and simple.

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Copyright 2023 Elwood Watson, distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate

Elwood Watson is a professor of history, Black studies, and gender and sexuality studies at East Tennessee State University. He is also an author and public speaker.

During his commencement speech at Howard University last weekend, President Joe Biden stated that white supremacy is the greatest threat to our society.

Biden was absolutely right on target in his remarks, which is evident in some of the more inflammatory comments made by conservative politicians.

“There he goes again!” is a common phrase most notably employed by the late president, Ronald Reagan, in 1984 against his predecessor, Jimmy Carter, who made critical comments directed at his ultimate successor. It’s a phrase applied perfectly to Tommy Tuberville.

The perennial, rhetorically obscene Alabama senator recently hurled another in a slew of previously offensive comments to the ire of many rational-minded citizens.

In an interview that aired earlier this month on NPR member station WBHM, Tuberville complained that military recruitment was down “because the Democrats are attacking our military, saying we need to get out the white extremists, the white nationalists, people that don’t believe in our agenda, as Joe Biden’s agenda.”

The former Auburn University coach was just getting warmed up.

“Well I don’t look at it like that,” Tuberville added. “I look at a white nationalist as a Trump Republican. That’s what we’re called all the time, a MAGA person… I agree that we should not be characterizing Trump supporters as white nationalists.”

Not surprisingly, after a public outcry in various quarters, the senator’s office made desperate attempts (unconvincingly) to clear up comments made by their boss. “Sen. Tuberville’s quote shows that he was being skeptical of the notion that there are white nationalists in the military, not that he believes they should be in the military,” said spokesman Steven Stafford. Yeah, right. Whatever.

Such callous rhetoric prompted fellow colleague, New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, to denounce Tuberville’s comments, calling them “shocking.”

“Can you believe that? Revolting. Utterly revolting,” Schumer said. “Does Senator Tuberville honestly believe that our military is stronger with white nationalists in its ranks? I cannot believe this needs to be said, but white nationalism has no place in our armed forces and no place in any corner of American society.”

Any decent human being with half a brain would find themselves in agreement with Schumer. The reality is that this is not the first example of Tuberville engaging in racially charged rhetoric.

In July 2002, he denounced immigrants from the Middle East, claiming, “They’re coming over here to tear this country down. They are not for the Constitution. They are not for our laws. They are not for the people in this country. They want to tear it down, and we’re not going to let that happen.”

Arabs were not the only non-White group who have earned the enmity of his bigoted tongue. In October 2022, at a Republican rally for Trump in Nevada, he commented that Democrats were engaged in a battle to take from white people and give to Black people, whom he stereotyped as criminals.

“No, they’re not soft on crime,” Tuberville said, “They’re pro-crime. They want crime. They want crime because they want to take over what you got. They want to control what you have. They want reparations because they think the people that do the crime are owed that. Bulls—!”

It would not have been that long ago that Tuberville and others of his far-right, white supremacist ilk would have been marginalized and forced to resign from their position. Now, in today’s post-Trump far-right Republican Party, they have found a political home, comfortably nestled among those whose harbor fascist sentiments.

It is a sad and chilling state of affairs.

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Copyright 2023 Elwood Watson, distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate

Elwood Watson is a professor of history, Black studies, and gender and sexuality studies at East Tennessee State University. He is also an author and public speaker.

By now, you’ve probably seen the chilling video showing the murder (yes that what it was) of Jordan Neely, a 24-year old New York man killed on the subway by a former Marine named Daniel Penny.

Reaction to the murder has been polarized and complex.  Many progressives, such as Reps. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and Jamaal Bowman, have expressed outrage over the incident, while conservative media figures have largely defended Penny and his actions. A Fox News audience member actually cheered as Sean Hannity discussed Neely’s death on his show last week.

Neely, a Black man who had performed on subway platforms as a Michael Jackson impersonator, was confronted with unrelenting adversity as he endured homelessness and mental health issues. During the drama that manifested, he made it clear he was suffering from hunger and thirst while riding an F train in Manhattan, according to Juan Alberto Vazquez, a journalist who witnessed the incident. Advocates for the homeless are calling for accountability for Neely’s death.

When I initially saw the video, I will confess that it took me a few minutes to process what I had witnessed. A man placed in prolonged chokehold and murdered on the subway for acting out? Like many of my fellow Black Americans, I was incensed and horrified after witnessing such a chilling scene.

Penny was questioned by police and released. The mainstream media initially withheld his name, though both the NYPD and multiple news outlets had no apprehension releasing Neely’s criminal record. Multiple newspapers described Neely as “unhinged” while deferentially referring to Penny as a veteran, employing absolving rhetoric to portray him as a earnest and heroic human being saving the masses of subway riders from a rapacious and wicked Black man.

There were other witnesses on the subway who confirmed Neely was in mental distress. Disoriented, shouting agitated and frustrated, he made it clear that he was hungry, thirsty, and wanted to die. While his behavior was described as “hostile and erratic” toward fellow passengers, there’s no evidence he threatened anyone.

Like a number of people who have taken the subway or any other forms of public transportation, I’ve seen people lash out and expose their mental anguish. My blood pressure has risen more than a few times witnessing such spectacles. Is this person armed? Are they on medication? Did they forget to take their medication? Will this escalate into something more dangerous? Yes, it is a difficult and painful situation to watch.

However, the truth is feeling scared or threatened does not grant a person the license to take the life of another human being. I am certain most of us would never resort to choking another person to death because their behavior was disturbing to us. Vigilantism is never a permissible form of action.

Poverty, homelessness, and mental illness are just a few crises in our county that fail to garner appropriate attention, marginalized and ignored by too many powerful and influential entities. Like many victims of mental illness, Jordan Neely cried out for help that was never forthcoming. No one came to his aid. A sad commentary to be sure.

Regarding Daniel Penny, the man who took Neely’s life, hopefully he will face accountability for his actions and see that engaging in wanton acts of vigilantism has consequences, both morally and legally.

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Copyright 2023 Elwood Watson, distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate

Elwood Watson is a professor of history, Black studies, and gender and sexuality studies at East Tennessee State University. He is also an author and public speaker.

Editor’s note: The column has been corrected to include Daniel Penny’s correct last name. 

In the campaign commercial President Joe Biden released to announce his re-election campaign, there was one individual who was prominently displayed – Kamala Harris.

Since the moment Biden selected her as his running mate in July 2020, there has been no shortage of commentary about Harris and her role as vice president. No honest person can dismiss the fact that being a woman of color has been a political handicap for her.

As a woman of color and a biracial one at that, Harris has to deal with the twin evils of “Jim Crow and Jane crow.” The term was espoused by pioneering legal scholar Pauli Murray in 1970.

Barack Obama was biracial, some will argue. But Obama was also a man running for president in an era that, although relatively recent, was not as politically fractured and divisive as the current climate.

Harris, the first Black woman and first Asian American vice president, has faced plenty of detractors during her first two and a half years as vice president, claiming she’s failed to define an effective role in the administration. Some of her assignments have included the difficult tasks of solving Central American migration along the southern border and ensuring voting rights amid a barrage of new state election laws.

Various factors aside, the indisputable reality is that Harris was not the most inspiring candidate. Indeed, a number of people, myself included, were both intrigued and taken aback at how surprisingly ambiguous the vice president has come across to the larger public. She has routinely struggled to explain her policy stances and seems to routinely equivocate when asked where she stood on an issue. At other times, she seems to be totally vague in her responses.

The truth is we are in an era where voters across the political spectrum want a candidate who is unmistakably definitive in their beliefs and free of any level of ambiguity. At the present moment, the American people, across the political spectrum, hunger for candor. Indecisive commentary will be soundly rejected.

Harris (at least at this point) has failed to heighten her stature or convince a plurality of voters she harbors the politically vital ingredients necessary to step into the shoes of the presidency, should Biden be incapable of serving a full second term.

Political flaws imagined or real, Kamala Harris remains popular among Black women. She recently traveled to Nashville, Tennessee to demonstrate support for the two lawmakers – Justin Pearson and Justin Johnson – who were callously expelled, then reinstated to the state legislature. Her journey to Africa last month and her most recent visit to her alma mater, Howard University, discussing abortion rights have earned solid marks from pundits and other political observers.

Both Biden and Harris must make a persuasive argument to fellow Democrats and swing voters why she remains the best choice to succeed him. It is something that both of them must do unequivocally and unambiguously.

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Copyright 2023 Elwood Watson, distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate

Elwood Watson is a professor of history, Black studies, and gender and sexuality studies at East Tennessee State University. He is also an author and public speaker.

A spate of recent shootings serve as a depressing reminder that accidentally ringing the wrong doorbell, driving to an incorrect residence, or mistakenly getting into the incorrect vehicle can be deadly.

In Kansas City, 16-year-old honors student Ralph Yarl mistakenly arrived at the wrong home while looking for his younger siblings. There he was shot and severely wounded by 84-year-old Andrew Lester, a chain of events that shocked residents and sent citizens and the country on edge.

Lester stated he was intimidated by the young teen’s size and height. For the record, Ralph Yarl is 5-foot-7, 150 lbs., hardly an imposing human being. It’s more likely Yarl’s Black skin was what intimidated the elder Lester.

Two days later, a similar tragedy occurred in Hebron, N.Y., when 65-year-old Kevin Monahan shot and killed a 20-year-old White woman, Kaylin Gillis, when she and her friends mistakenly drove up the driveway of Monahan’s house.

Kevin Monahan is still unrepentant. About the only significant news we have heard regarding the sexagenarian is he was prone to getting into verbal altercations and routinely threaten his neighbors with physical violence.

That was followed by an incident in central Texas, where a high school cheerleader and her friends were shot at after mistakenly getting into the car of Pedro Tello Rodriguez Jr. One of the teens, Payton Washington, is currently recuperating from life threatening injuries.

There’s also 24-year-old Robert Louis Singletary of Hillsborough County, North Carolina, who was apprehended by Florida authorities after allegedly shooting at his neighbors after their daughter wandered into his yard. The little girl was shot in her lower jaw, but thankfully her injuries were non-life threatening.

While not as much information has been dispensed about Rodriguez and Singletary, it does not take the IQ of a rocket scientist to understand that both men are deeply emotionally disturbed individuals. `

It’s not uncommon for someone to visit the wrong house or ring the doorbell of the wrong neighbor. How many of you have tried to unlock a car that isn’t yours? You should consider yourselves lucky you weren’t the victim of some deliriously paranoid individual with a gun.

Most people who own firearms are responsible gun owners. But there is a small but dangerous segment bereft of any reasonable level of emotional discipline and should be forfeited the option of owning them. These are the people who harbor several deficits of control impulse. They are a danger to you, me, your neighbors, your loved ones, children, and others. They are literal menaces to society.

By carelessly and recklessly endorsing so-called stand-your-ground laws, Republicans have engineered a misperception that puts the lives of innocent people in jeopardy. Thankfully, in more than two-thirds of the states that have adopted such laws, shooters must be able to establish that their fear was reasonable. Paranoia, suspicion, or racial bias is not a justifiable defense. I guess that’s something.

My late father was a gun enthusiast. He had a gun collection in our home that was locked out out of the safety of us children. He was a hunter, and while he was no right-wing conservative, he did believe and supported the second amendment. However, he (like most reasonable people) believed that background checks for gun purchases should be required. Psychological evaluations and other precautions should be necessary before any human being is allowed access to any sort of weapon.

It’s encouraging that all four men are being charged, but these tragic incidents will continue until more Americans demand tougher gun laws from lawmakers who are too cowardly in taking on the NRA and powerful gun lobbyists.

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Copyright 2023 Elwood Watson, distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate

Elwood Watson is a professor of history, Black studies, and gender and sexuality studies at East Tennessee State University. He is also an author and public speaker.

Amen to Cornell University president Martha Pollack and Provost Michael Kotlikoff for rejecting to ratify a proposal introduced by the student senate to mandate trigger warnings into syllabi and course content.

In a statement, Pollack and Kotlikoff said such a mandate “would infringe on our core commitment to academic freedom and freedom of inquiry, and are at odds with the goals of a Cornell education.”

Over the past decade, trigger warnings have been a topic that has dominated academic discourse. The term has become a major buzzword in academia as well as in many institutions outside of higher education.

Supporters of the policy argue that it provides certain students who are not as emotionally impervious as their peers the opportunity to be forewarned of material they may find psychologically hazardous to their mental well-being. Detractors see such an issue as a real danger to free speech and a severe encroachment upon academic freedom. Count me as a member of the latter category.

It appears we are witnessing a generation of kids who have grown up in an environment where many things are handled for them. Many are under the assumption they are entitled to choose from a smorgasbord of options and appear to have been indoctrinated with an “everyone wins” attitude.

In their largely scripted and insular worlds, professors are supposed to solely relegate their pedagogy to delivering safe and conflict-free lectures. They sometimes consider debating, discussing, engaging in critical thinking, reading complex or controversial material, and writing essays “too difficult” or unacceptable.

The degree of emotional fragility among some young people is troubling. It is a sad, if not an outright disturbing sight to witness.

I make it clear to my students during the first class of every semester they are no longer in high school. They have arrived on a college campus, they are now adults (a few are still legally minors), that life is not multiple choice though it can be somewhat true and false (which always gets a few laughs). Moreover, I inform them that none of us are going to be totally comfortable with everything we encounter or hear, and that as human beings we must be expected to acclimate to various situations and environments. Occasionally taking people out of their comfort zones can be a positive thing.

I am reasonable and sensitive enough to realize there are some arenas where such rhetoric is better off not being discussed. Would it be practical to discuss complex issues of brutal, violent warfare or graphic sexual violence to a group of elementary school kids? Of course now. But discussing such topics with college age individuals? Absolutely!

Professors who decide to incorporate a statement discussing trigger warnings on their course syllabi certainly have the right to do so. At that point, the ball is in the student’s court, so-to-speak.

The fact is that life is occasionally full of challenges, unpredictable circumstances and situations. No one, not even the most fortunate among us, is going to be immune from being jilted by certain situations. Human nature will make sure of this.

Trigger warnings are potentially dangerous tools in that they can be employed and weaponized by people with various political and social agendas who wish to stifle debate or viewpoints that they are at odds with. Mandating such warnings would be a regressive and reactionary policy that could have a chilling – if not outright nullifying – effect on academic freedom.

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Copyright 2023 Elwood Watson, distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate

Elwood Watson is a professor of history, Black studies, and gender and sexuality studies at East Tennessee State University. He is also an author and public speaker.

By now, most Americans have heard and seen the callous and malicious manner in which two Tennessee lawmakers were expelled from their house seats.

The GOP-controlled Tennessee House voted late Thursday to expel two of the “Tennessee 3.” That trio of Democratic lawmakers had committed the transgression of presiding over protests at the capital — with one wielding a bullhorn — demanding action on guns after the horrific mass shooting in a Nashville school that left six people dead, including three children.

Two of the three Democrats — both young, Black and representing urban areas — were ousted by overwhelmingly white and conservative majorities. The third, a white woman, narrowly survived the vote. Republicans charged them with breaking House rules of conduct.

Justin Jones, representative for Nashville, and Justin Pearson, who represented Memphis, gave rousing speeches in the chamber before the majority-white legislature voted to oust them, leaving tens of thousands of mostly Black and brown Tennessee residents without representation.

Due to the vociferous level of outrage, the Nashville Metro Council voted Monday 36-0 to restore Jones. On Wednesday, the Shelby County Commission is expected to vote on whether to reappoint Pearson.

Gloria Johnson represents Knoxville. When asked why she believed that she survived expulsion while her two fellow Black colleagues were expelled, Johnson candidly replied, “I’ll answer your question: it might have to do with the color of our skin.”

Rather than marginalize the politicians, the incident has turned the three lawmakers into political rockstars and martyrs. Thousands of people across the nation have poured into Nashville to demonstrate their support for Jones, Pearson and Johnson. The congressional Black caucus announced their support and have come to the defense of the trio. Vice President Kamala Harris made an urgent trip to Nashville on Friday to meet with the two Black Democratic lawmakers.

As someone who currently resides in Tennessee, the news has drawn intense and passionate debate throughout the state. There are those who see the lawmakers as “rule violators and troublemakers,” while others are fiercely supportive of the trio and offer their unwavering support. Count me in the second category.

The larger issue that emanates from this incident is the fact that racism remains a perennial fact of American life. Indeed, both Jones and Pearson made it evident how they were referred to as “uppity” by certain colleagues for daring to call out and challenge certain injustices. How they were chastised for “not accepting things the way they are,” and targeted for daring to challenge the status quo in general.

“I basically had a member call me an uppity Negro,” Jones, who is Black, told MSNBC’s Joy Reid after the 72-25 vote that expelled him.

“From the time I walked in in January, I was made to feel like I should not be welcome here because I’ve led protests here. I was arrested in this building over 14 times trying to remove a KKK statue that we finally removed from this rotunda where we’re standing,” Jones added, calling the actions of Republicans “an attack on democracy and very overt racism.”

Not surprisingly, there were those who disagreed that the expulsions had a racial nexus. Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton denied that racism played a part in the legislature’s decision to expel two Black lawmakers who protested but not the white lawmaker who also participated.

“It’s unfortunate that that’s where they’re trying to take the nation, and I appreciate you having me on to clarify this,” Sexton said on the right-wing news network Newsmax. “If you go back … all three had due process on the floor. They all were able to stand up, make statements and take questions.”

Sexton can defend the move to expel two Black lawmakers all he wants, but Jones was correct. The nation witnessed a wicked attack on democracy in Tennessee, and as a residents of the state, I had a front row seat to this gross miscarriage of justice.

The truth is that number of whites are in denial about racism. A greater percentage are even more dismissive about the potential negative economic, psychological and emotional impact that it can have on the lives of Black and brown people.

Such attitudes have manifested themselves in varied ways. Conservative talk radio is relentlessly bombastic with its relentless thrashing of virtually anything not associated with whiteness, maleness, heterosexuality, and Christianity. Conservatives also invoke race when they decry “wokeness,” despite the fact they cannot even provide an adequate definition of the term.

A history of violence and discrimination has deeply affected America’s Black population. The results still linger with us today, and those emotional scars are ripped open when events like the miscarriage of justice in Tennessee happen.

Denying such hard truths will not bring us any closer to any sort of racial reconciliation. Rather, acknowledging that racial conflict is a serious problem and making a valiant, diligent, and committed effort to tackling the issue will be the only viable solution to addressing such a crisis.

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Copyright 2023 Elwood Watson, distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate

Elwood Watson is a professor of history, Black studies, and gender and sexuality studies at East Tennessee State University. He is also an author and public speaker.

Now that Donald Trump has officially been indicted, Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg and others have been targeted by disturbed protestors threatening retribution and even death.

Even Donald Trump warned of “potential death and destruction” once he was charged in a probe of hush money payments made to adult film star Stormy Daniels.

“The political Rubicon has been crossed. There’s no going back from this,” Charlie Kirk, a right-wing talk show host, wrote on Truth Social, Trump’s social media platform. Fox News host Jesse Waters warned, “The country’s not gonna stand for it. And people better be careful. And that’s all I’ll say about that.”

Numerous conservative pundits have hinted at, if not encouraged, rebellion and violence. Such brazen, careless and callous rhetoric is nothing short of abominable.

Truth be told, Americans have periodically witnessed such violence from segments of our population over the course of our country’s history, mainly White supremacists who believe they have the privilege and right to the sort of government and nation that suits them. At various times in our nation’s history, armed protestors – often carrying confederate and altered Nazi flags – have taken to the streets to belligerently demand concessions.

Today, in the post-Trump era, vast segments of the right-wing media ecosystem have begun to toss around the word “boogaloo,” a prominent term among anarchists who have been increasingly and passionately agitating for a racial civil war.

While these gun-toting rebels are after labeled “warriors for free speech” by their political allies, they espouse nothing but poisonous words of vitriol for groups they disagree with, including Black Lives Matter and environmental activists attempting to offer warnings about climate change.

Many of these resistors (overwhelmingly White) appear to have no compunction in gleefully engaging in blatant acts of disrespectful and menacing behavior. Does anyone with any degree of sanity believe that a group of rabidly undisciplined people of color who dared to act in a similar way be celebrated by police and treaded as free speech warriors by the right?

Just imagine for a second if a group of Black protestors defiantly brandished assault rifles while screaming obscenities at law enforcement officials. What would the reaction be? How would we treat protestors who called for the deportation of certain ethnic groups of white people, or openly called for the overthrow of the government?

The truth is a large group of people of color aggressively protesting would not have gotten anywhere near a state capitol building, let alone been granted permission to go inside. This is the epitome of white privilege.

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Copyright 2023 Elwood Watson, distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate

Elwood Watson is a professor of history, Black studies, and gender and sexuality studies at East Tennessee State University. He is also an author and public speaker.

Over the past few months, Donald Trump has returned to his sporadic and sinister practice of stoking white resentment and supremacist sentiment.

Recently, he has taken aim at Black prosecutors. His most recent target has been Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who is weighing an indictment against Trump over an alleged hush-money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 election.

Last week, Trump was soundly and roundly condemned for a number of inflammatory posts on his Truth Social website denounced as blatantly and offensively racist toward Bragg. For instance, Trump called Bragg, the first Black district attorney in Manhattan, a “SOROS BACKED ANIMAL,” and referred to the legal system as “THE GESTAPO” Trump followed that scurrilous remark by posting a photo of himself wielding a baseball bat over Bragg’s head.

“No, Mr. Trump. You may disagree with the legal proceedings against you but calling it the “Gestapo…but worse” is ugly and wrong. It’s ahistorical, offensive and an affront to the actual victims of the Gestapo’s terror tactics,” wrote Jonathan Greenblatt, the president of the Anti-Defamation League. “Moreover, referring to a Black prosecutor as an animal is racist and gross. It’s the kind of dog whistle that we’ve come to expect from Trump. It might appeal to white supremacists, but it should be rejected by all decent Americans.”

Fani Willis is another Black lawmaker who has been a target of Trump. The Fulton County district attorney has been actively involved in an effort to prohibit state legislation that would curtail the power of decision makers like herself. More notably, Willis is considering charging the former commander-in-chief with racketeering and conspiracy charges related to Trump’s involvement in placing political pressure on Georgia lawmakers after his defeat in 2020.

There is also New York Attorney General Letitia James, who Trump has aggressively attacked after she announced a $250 million lawsuit against the former president for fraud. In typical Trump theatrical fashion, the former president baselessly denounced James as a “racist” who was responsible for the “greatest witch hunt in history.”

As a historian, I argue that the Salem Witch Trials would be a more apt example.

To those of us familiar with historical tropes, by referring to Bragg as “an animal,” it is evident Trump is odiously implying the decorated prosecutor is not quite fully human and is being manipulated by his supposed “Jewish master,” George Soros. He portrays Willis as an “uppity” Black woman who has the audacity to challenge a powerful  and privilege white man, while he paints James as an incompetent Black person who genuinely hates white people.

It is the height of nonsensical foolishness.

It is not lost on some of us that all the attorneys he has targeted for harassment are Black, and he’s accusing each of the of various types of racial animus toward him.

Can Black people be individually racist? Yes. Can Black people practice institutional racism? No. Black people do not harbor the political, social or economic power to engineer the mechanisms that the entity of racism routinely deploys upon those who suffer under its rapacious spirit.

So it’s pretty clear it’s Trump, and not those whom he’s accusing, who is playing the so-called “race card.”

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Copyright 2023 Elwood Watson, distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate

Elwood Watson is a professor of history, Black studies, and gender and sexuality studies at East Tennessee State University. He is also an author and public speaker.