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Former President Barack Obama stirred up some attention last week when he suggested lackluster support for Kamala Harris among Black men is mostly about her gender.

“Part of it makes me think that, well, you just aren’t feeling the idea of having a woman as president, and you’re coming up with other alternatives or other reasons for that,” Obama said at Harris’ campaign offices in Pittsburgh. “You’re thinking about sitting out, or even supporting somebody who has a history of denigrating you?”

Obama likened this attitude to betrayal. “Women in our lives have been getting our backs this entire time,” he said. “When we get in trouble and the system isn’t working for us, they’re the ones out there marching and protesting.”

The larger Black community has viewed Obama as a complex spokesperson. His most recent remarks conjured up times during his tenure when, as an upscale, elite, educated (Columbia and Harvard University) Black man, he was — and still is — perceived to be condescending in his rhetoric to Black people.

Former democratic Ohio representative and CNN commentator Nina Turner chastised Obama by responding, “Why are Black men being belittled in ways that no other voting group [is]? Now, a lot of love for former President Obama, but for him to single out Black men is wrong.”

Bloomberg political columnist Nia-Malika Henderson argued that Obama needs to stop lecturing condescendingly to Black men. Democratic activist and actor Wendell Pierce declared, “Awful message,” asserting that the Democratic Party must cease scapegoating Black men. “Any Black man that has an issue with a Black woman rising, they have to look at their own inadequacy,” Pierce said. “What would make you so fearful of someone who was so beloved of you, who was so loving to you, like your mother and your grandmother and your aunts and your sisters, that you cannot be proud and embolden yourself when you see someone from your community rise up?”

There is certainly some kernel of truth in Obama’s assumption that a sizable segment of Black men are wary of a Harris presidency due to the fact that she is female. Sexism, like racism, is a perverse vice that is deeply embedded in the fabric of American society.But the reality is Black men support Harris and the Democratic Party at considerably larger rates than men of any other racial group.

Trump’s drastically limited degree of appeal to Black men is centered on whether their livelihoods are smoother when Democrats are in power and, sadly, for a segment, the answer is no. Nonetheless, Harris has the potential to be far more progressive on racial issues than  Obama was.

While speaking at Harris’ campaign office, the former president referred to such distinctions. He stated that Black men should appreciate that Harris “grew up like you, knows you, went to college with you, understands the struggles and pain and joy that comes from those experiences.” Indeed, this is the sort of rhetoric that is far more endearing and persuasive than levying paternalistic and patronizing comments toward the minute segment of Black men who are politically ambivalent toward Harris of being sexist.

The majority of Black men are adamant critics of systemic and systematic racism, concerned about ongoing police brutality, want politicians to challenge greedy businessmen, and want more attention directed to issues that include ballooning college tuition debt and stagnant wage growth.

In other words, Black men are just like voters of all genders and ethnic groups. They want to see a society  dedicated to fairness, justice, and equality for all, as opposed to a privileged, preordained few.

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Copyright 2024 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 stoked the flames of white resentment on the campaign trail.

Speaking to conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt this week, the former president — who once referred to himself as a “gene believer” and has a known obsession with genetics and bloodlines — accused migrants coming to the southern border of being “criminals” and having “bad genes.”

It’s latest in a long item of bigoted and xenophobic statements from Trump, ranging from immigrants migrating from “s—hole nations” to supposedly “poisoning the blood” of the United States. He and his vice-presidential running mate, JD Vance, lied that Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating their neighbors’ cats and dogs.

The pet-eating rumor, originally circulated by neo-Nazi groups, was part of a litany of stories that Trump has used to incite anger and resentment towards immigrant communities. Springfield has endured bomb threats and had to shut down their City Hall, public schools, and motor vehicles offices. To their credit, several Haitian activist groups have sued Trump and Vance for promoting such alarmingly irresponsible rhetoric about their communities.

Vance arrogantly admitted to fabricating the false stories in an effort to garner press attentionm further stating “If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do.” So much for honesty and integrity.

The fact that Trump continues to engage in race-baiting tactics is unsurprising. Recall back to July at the National Association of Black Journalists conference in Chicago, when Trump demeaned Kamala Harris’s humanity as a Black woman and argued she was a racial hijacker and deceiver unable to decide whether she is Black or Indian. This is an example of Trump’s perverse audacity and arrogance in believing he can decide who the “real” and “legitimate” Blacks are.

Trump’s attacks on non-white people are not relegated to Black people. Asian Americans have been periodic targets of the former president’s acerbic rhetoric. During the COVID crisis, he referred to the pandemic as the “Asian Flu” as an attempt to brew ethnic hostility toward Asian American communities that could potentially position them as targets for violence. That practice of branding migrants as a perpetual “other” has reemerged in the 2024 presidential election.

Of course, we all remember the “Mexicans are criminals, rapists, purveyors of violent crime, and some are, in fact, good people” statement made at the initial moments of his 2015 campaign for president. Let’s not forget, he attempted to ban Muslims from entering the United States.

Non-Christians have failed to escape his jaundiced, opinionated mindset. Trump has repeatedly described Jewish Americans who do not support him as being “bad Jews” who need to “have their heads examined.” He also said Jews will be to blame if he loses the November election, and concurred with conservative host’s Sid Rosenberg’s view that  Harris’ husband, Douglas Emhoff, is a “crappy Jew.”

Trump’s acidic rhetoric is seen as a license by his followers to demean and disregard others. He portrays others as existential threats determined to destroy everything his MAGA base admires about the United States. It signals to his supporters that disregarding basic human restraint and destroying perceived enemies “by any means necessary” is permissible. Although there are some conservatives who have denounced the tactics of their more extreme brethren, they seem to be isolated voices in the wilderness rather than taken seriously among Republicans as rational voices of reason.

Thankfully, Trump’s far right attacks on attacks on other ethnic groups appear to have stalled. A number of polls indicate Trump may actually lose independent and other voters outside of his base because of the perception that his racism, misogyny, xenophobia and other crude, obnoxious behavior are proof he is a psychologically unhinged and divisive figure who represents a dire threat to the future and well-being of U.S. society.

On the contrary, Harris has successfully declared a significant degree of moral authority and framed the 2024 election as a litmus test on the nation’s character.

Harris is a classic American success story. She is the child of immigrants and the first Black and South Asian woman to be nominated by a major party as its presidential candidate. She is able to utilize her life experience to positively weaponize diversity and inclusion to effectively combat those who have attempted to implement a 21st-century Jim Crow apartheid and desire to bring America back to the sordid part of its past that Trump and his neofascist MAGA movement represent.

For the sake of our democracy, let’s hope she is effective and successful in convincing most voters to do the same.

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Copyright 2024 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.

It still seems so surreal.

Sean Combs’s arrest last month on charges including sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy represents a stunning reversal of fortune for the hip-hop impresario. As recently as a year ago, Combs was feted as an industry visionary before a sudden series of sexual assault accusations emerged.

Prosecutors said in an indictment that, since 2008, Combs (aka Diddy) has been the puppet master of a colossal criminal outfit that included employees and engaged in various sordid antics, including kidnapping, threats of violence to intimidate and silence victims, forced labor, arson and bribery. He has denied the allegations and pleaded not guilty to the charges. He currently resides in a jail cell in the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, where a judge has ordered him to remain until his trial.

The charges against Combs are the music industry’s most significant, high-profile criminal prosecution on sexual misconduct charges since R&B star R. Kelly was sentenced in 2022 and 2023 to more than 30 years in prison for child sex crimes, sex trafficking, and racketeering. As they have with Combs, credible allegations of abuse dogged R. Kelly for decades.

His lavish Labor Day “White Party,” whether held in the Hamptons, St. Tropez, or Los Angeles, was a major event that featured numerous A-list celebrities wearing various shades of white. Combs also indulged in treating himself to expensive birthday parties in the company of megastars and high-profile businesspeople. Never one to shun self promotion, the hip-hop mogul told The Independent in 2001 that, “I am the Great Gatsby!”

The typical narrative is women who accuse men of sexual assault are often dishonest fortune hunters looking for a quick payday. Oftentimes, the accusers’ reputations are savaged, while the powerful accused are often defended. Interestingly, this has not been the reality for Combs.

The reasons are varied. One is probably the advent of the #MeToo movement that activist Tamara Burke established in 2017 to illuminate a culture of sexual harassment, abuse, and rape that had been part of the public discourse for a few years. Additionally, many people were initially hard-pressed to believe men such as “America’s Dad” Bill Cosby, who spent decades drugging and sexually assaulting women, were capable of engaging in such menacing and sadistic behavior.

On the contrary, many people witnessed the horrendous CNN video of Combs violently assaulting ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura in 2016. Details of the incident were virtually verbatim to those in the civil lawsuit she filed against Combs in November 2023, accusing him of rape and abuse.

According to the government, Combs used force, threats, and coercion to manipulate women into what he called “freak offs,” that is, “highly orchestrated performances of sexual activity” in hotels and other locations fueled by drugs and lasting for days. At these events, the government says, women were plied with drugs to keep them “obedient” and coerced to participate in sex with male prostitutes. Prosecutors said Combs would watch these events, sometimes while masturbating and recording video. According to the government, Combs used those recordings as collateral to maintain a culture of silence and obedience.

In all probability, it’s the salacious details in the indictment — such as the more than 1,000 bottles of baby oil and lubricant found during raids at his homes in Miami and Los Angeles — that have resulted in Combs’s would-be supporters remaining silent. Such silence likely exists due to the reality that, as is often the case with those accused of sexual misconduct, many are well aware of Combs’s alleged crimes (or participated in them).

Music producer Rodney “Lil Rod” Jones sued Combs earlier this year, claiming he was “the victim of constant unsolicited and unauthorized groping and touching” by Combs and had been “subjected to unwanted advances by associates of Diddy at his direction and was forced to engage in relations with sex workers [Combs] hired.”

To be sure, Combs has his defenders. All one has to do is visit Instagram and Tik Tok, among other social media platforms, that show some people using the “we want to bring a powerful Black man down” argument to witness such support.

Yes, we know that American Black men have had a long and tortured history of being the frequent victims of a vehemently hostile and racially biased criminal justice system. That piece of undeniable truth aside, there is little evidence to indicate Combs is being falsely targeted.

If anything, he has spent decades protected from his criminal behavior by his vast wealth and meticulously crafted reputation as a kind of Willy Wonka. If the allegations are true, then indeed he must be prosecuted. The same goes for anyone who aided and abetted him in such wicked, sadistic, and sinister shenanigans.

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Copyright 2024 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.

Raw and risqué revelations surfaced last week about North Carolina Republican gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson’s life between 2008 and 2012.

Revealed was his sinewy past as an adult porn commentator on a seedy website that reportedly included a voyeuristic and voracious appetite for viewing sexual bondage and more claims not even CNN felt appropriate repeating. I cannot print the worst posts.

Robinson also reportedly described himself as “a Black Nazi” and said in 2012, “I’d take Hitler over any of the s— that’s in Washington right now!.” He further denied the Holocaust as “hogwash” and promoted virulent anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.

He also  criticized the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., calling the iconic civil rights leader a “commie bastard,” “worse than a maggot,” and “Martin Lucifer Koon.”

“Slavery is not bad. Some people need to be slaves. I wish they would bring [slavery] back. I would certainly buy a few,” Robinson wrote.

I have a few things to say to Mr. Robinson. First, slavery was horrendous and sadistic. Second, neither Adolf Hitler nor the current Nazis of the 21st century would have any use for you, me, or any other non-White or Jewish person, outside of wanting to murder us. Finally, for you to refer to Dr. King as a “maggot” is despicable. You ought to be glad he wouldn’t even have looked in your direction.

For his part, Robinson denounced the story as a “high-tech lynching” (remember when Clarence Thomas made the same comments about the Anita Hill hearings?) and insisted that such posts do not reflect his voice. However, the truth is they sound identical to his previous rhetoric. In June this year, Robinson stated that, “Some folks need killing!” He previously dismissed the Holocaust and argued that the comic-book hero, Black Panther, was a ploy by Jews “to pull the shekels out of your Schvartze pockets.” He foolishly called Michelle Obama a man and derided Beyoncé’s music as being satanic.

As The Carolina Journal reported, some North Carolina Republicans immediately privately contacted Robinson and aggressively urged him to withdraw from the gubernatorial race. This was certainly not due to the new revelations that occurred. Indeed, large swaths of the conservative movement are familiar with Robinson’s incendiary rhetoric. Rather, they see the polls plummeting even further southward. Robinson had already trailed his Democratic opponent, state Attorney General Josh Stein, by double digits before this additional controversy surfaced.

Truth be told, Robinson’s reputation is so deplorable even the national Republican Party is frantically fretting he could be a significant liability for Donald Trump, as well as Republicans down the ballot, for whom the Tar Heel state is important. The September 20 deadline for candidate name withdrawal has passed.

To be sure, Robinson’s sex life is his own personal business, and I doubt too many people really care about it. His dilemma is that he refuses to permit the same level of freedom and courtesy to others. He is a hard-liner on abortion, long supporting a complete ban despite having paid for an abortion for his wife. He’s also been outspokenly critical of LGBTQIA+ people, deriding transgender rights and calling homosexuality “filth.”

Robinson’s racism, anti-Semitism, embracement of slavery, and Holocaust denialism are far more troubling. Had he not decided to run for office, such hate-filled, scoundrel-like rhetoric would have remained disturbing and offensive rhetoric by some random person. The multiple staff members that abruptly resigned from his campaign speaks volumes. That being said, such resignations at this stage in the campaign are purely self-serving. Republican operatives as well as voters knew what sort of character deficits Mark Robinson had when they selected him as their party nominee. He was a bad person then and his atrocious behavior has now been exposed to a larger audience.

One can only wonder if Robinson himself is having bitter recriminations about his perverted and sadistic impulses. If his past behavior is any indication, the answer is highly unlikely.

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Copyright 2024 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.

When it comes to the issue of debates, perception is often just as crucial as reality and substance.

Donald Trump’s debate performance last week was nothing short of dismal. It was a failed opportunity for Trump to persuade the American people (albeit cynically) about the direction of our nation. True to his character, he was abrupt, combative, and ruthlessly negative. As Trump sees it, the country is a few steps away from implosion.

From a historical perspective, presidential debates usually are irrelevant. A trove of social science literature argues the majority of debate watchers have firmly decided whom they intend to vote for. While the victorious candidate might get a current boost from a competent performance, the polling bump often subsides.

But the debate between Trump and Kamala Harris may very well be a political aberration. It was a one-sided affair, a waterloo of epic proportions for the former president.

It was such a rout that many conservative pundits frantically bewailed Trump’s disastrous performance. Some resorted to sinister conspiracy theories in an effort to discredit Harris’ performance, pointing to a unsubstantiated document dispensed by a random social media account that claimed, without evidence, ABC News colluded with the vice president against Trump.

The charges were so outlandish that Gateway Pundit, a far-right conspiracy theory site supportive of Trump, denounced it as “a complete hoax.”

None of these issues stopped folks like Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green, billionaire Bill Ackman, and X owner Elon Musk of jumping all over the false story and sharing the phony documents.

Until recently, many perceived Harris as ill-suited for the role of the vice presidency, let alone president of the United States. She was a person that much of the mainstream media often ridiculed, a number of political pundits had derided as the “weakest” alternative to Biden. Racist and sexist voices on the right routinely demeaned her supposed political deficiencies and large segments of the press provided only sporadic coverage of the vice president.

Her debate performance effectively dispelled initial perceptions, misguided assumptions and bigoted prejudices that she was a “DEI” hire. Even now, post-debate performance, there are a few detractors who believe that Harris is devoid of the necessary political acumen to be successful.

There are a small segment of journalists that have championed her achievements and competencies, but they have tended to be voices on the political periphery. Interestingly, the September 10th debate became a revelatory moment to many seasoned beltway political veterans who had smugly dismissed Harris as being ill-suited for her current position. Many of them were left wondering as well as pondering what it was that made them misdiagnose their patient with such gross negligence.

As history indicates, first debates do not always guarantee a final outcome, though this one may be the only event between Harris and Trump. Walter Mondale, John Kerry and Hillary Clinton were seen as the victors after their initial debate performances yet failed to win the presidency. Nonetheless, for the moment, the vice president and her campaign have the wind at their backs.

Harris is the nation’s first female vice president. In a nation that historically has been deeply politically ingrained in racial conflict, such a fact itself is glaringly noteworthy. Regardless of whether she is victorious or not in November, Harris is the first woman of color to serve as the Democratic party nominee.

This is a fact that will be permanently etched in her life story as well as in the political annals of American history.

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Copyright 2024 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.

What is old is new again, at least in the world of politics.

Recently, Fox News host Jesse Watters made a quip questioning the veracity of Barack Obama’s birth certificate during a live edition of The Five.

Regardless of whether he was being intellectually dishonest or not, Watters presented the topic of Obama’s birth certificate as somehow fraught with political intrigue and announced he would be dispatching his producer to find out the truth. “That’s why we’ll be sending Johnny to Hawaii to get the truth about the birth certificate,” Watters told viewers. “This time we will dig deep and find out what really happened.”

Birtherism is the disproven argument that Obama wasn’t born in the United States and therefore not constitutionally eligible to be president. Birtherism proponents allege that Obama — who actually was born in Hawaii — was born in Kenya, his father’s country of birth. Trump himself helped spread birtherism, claiming years ago he had sent investigators to Hawaii.

Independent entities have investigated the subject numerous times over the years, and there remains no evidence to suggest Obama is not a natural born U.S. citizen.

Why are these claims relevant now? Because Trump has espoused similar nonsensical, egregious claims relating to another non-white candidate, Kamala Harris, after Biden selected her as his running mate in 2020. Similar to his attacks on Obama, fact-checkers proved his assertions false.

It is important to note that in 2016, Donald Trump admitted what the rational and sane among us had always known. He conceded President Obama was born in the United States and was thus a legitimate American citizen. The twice-impeached, convicted felon’s belated admission supposedly answered all previous denunciations and skepticism and closed this long-running and rambling chapter.

Like virtually everything that involves Trump, the admission was not without controversy. Rather than admit he had engaged in perversely irresponsible behavior, he typically shifted the blame, targeting his then presidential rival Hillary Clinton and her campaign staff for creating such a foul rumor. Clinton quickly and effectively refuted any allegations that her campaign had anything to do with such sinister antics and denounced Trump as being disgraceful. To their credit, the mainstream media immediately supported Clinton’s claim that neither she nor her campaign was involved with the “President Obama is not an American” birther nonsense.

Speaking of the mainstream media, anyone who followed the story could witness the intense level of anger, annoyance, disgust, and resentment that reverberated on many news networks.  Trump successfully manipulated the all too eager mainstream media to believe that he actually had “significant news” about President Obama’s citizenship status. Immediately afterward, it was evident that many reporters, news anchors, pundits, radio hosts, and others in the media felt as if they had received a painful kick in the stomach after realizing Trump had conned them. Numerous segments of the press were left wiping the egg off their faces and sucking their thumbs, both publicly and privately. It was simply a case of a master manipulator, a hotel promoter, playing them for fools.

Watters, Fox News, and many other right-wing media personalities have known for the better part of a decade the birther issue was and is a highly effective and perverse strategy to appeal to America’s most jingoistic voting electorate. It serves as red meat for the country’s most racially afflicted voters, feeding their sordid and largely unhinged psyches.

A sizable segment of white Americans still cannot accept that voters actually elected a Black man as president and may very well be on the verge of electing a Black biracial woman as the country’s first female commander-in-chief. To these men and women, a Black president is a fantasy, an image solely relegated to literature, Hollywood movies, and other fictional spheres. A Black president is incomprehensible in real life. For the bigoted, it is an affront to both their racial sensibilities and to the sort of America they would like to envision.

Opportunists like Watters know this reality all too well and do not hesitate to capitalize on such fear, hostility, and resentment.

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Copyright 2024 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.

One can only wonder about JD Vance’s peculiar and freakish obsession with people who do not have children.

The Ohio senator and Republican vice presidential candidate has disturbingly targeted women who are absent of biological offspring as “childless cat ladies” (apparently being an adoptive parent or stepparent does not qualify) and perversely stated child-free Americans are “more sociopathic” than Americans with kids and make the U.S. “less mentally stable.”

As Vance sees it, no one absent of children has a “direct stake” in the nation. Although, interestingly, he has urged people embroiled in domestic physical discord to remain in violent marriages for the sake of their children, citing his grandparents—one of whom tried to murder the other—as a requisite example. Go figure.

At a Center for Christian Virtue forum in 2021, Vance was heard saying: “So many of the leaders of the left, and I hate to be so personal about this, but they’re people without kids trying to brainwash the minds of our children, and that really disorients me, and it really disturbs me. [American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten] doesn’t have a single child. If she wants to brainwash and destroy the minds of children, she should have some of her own and leave ours the hell alone.”

Needless to say, reaction to such personal, hostile and nonsensical rhetoric has been swift and immediate. Weingarten responded to Vance’s resurfaced comments on social media, calling them “gross” and “sad and insulting to millions of modern families, and school teachers including Catholic nuns, none of whom should be targeted for their family decisions.”

For the record, as one of those childless (or rather, child-free), Americans (who is also a college professor) that JD Vance is referring to, the reasons I and millions of other men and women have decided to remain child-free undoubtedly, vary just as they do for the multitude who decided to pursue the children-and-family path. For me, it has always been simply a matter of choice. I have always been an iconoclastic individual, rebellious in many ways. Growing up, I heard and saw too many stories of people making choices, whether it be marriage, children, selection of friends, or pursuit of jobs, because of family influence, societal pressure, desperation, or simply because it was “the thing to do.”

As a consequence, many of these people found themselves stuck in unhappy, loveless, dysfunctional marriages or relationships, (the sort that Vance encourages people to remain in), becoming “friends” and associates with individuals they tolerated but really were not all that fond of, working at jobs that made them miserable and yes, in some cases, having children they did not want and eventually regretted having. Witnessing such experiences made me determined to live my life on my terms and do what made me happy, as long as it did not disrupt or negatively impact anyone else.

Some individuals are first-rate and splendid parents. They are caring, attentive, conscientious, and loving. Their children are the pride and joy of their lives; they would not have it any other way, and their kids are fortunate to have been born to them. In contrast, there are people who are lousy and terrible parents who had no business giving birth to anyone. Some are neglectful, abusive, financially inadequate, emotionally distant, and mentally unfit, and you feel for their children and hope they make it to adulthood. We all know or have encountered such people.

When my nieces and nephews were younger, I would tell people I loved them to death, but I was glad that I did not have to raise them. Many would laugh and say, “I understand what you are saying.” Decades later, as a person who is deep into middle age, I can honestly say that I have not regretted my decision one bit. I have managed to inhabit a happy, fulfilled life without children.

In fact, I have mentioned to a number of people that in my almost three decades as a college professor, I have served as a parent of sorts to many students of across race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion, and gender to help prepare them for their future careers. In short, I have been a “father” of sorts in other ways. Moreover, my multiple teaching awards dispel Vance’s perverted mythology.

In essence, biological parents, adoptive parents, and surrogate parents have made their decisions. We child-free parents have made ours. JD Vance made his. Now, he needs to stop with the asinine rhetoric, stay out of other people’s personal decisions, and mind his own damn business.

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Copyright 2024 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.

Like millions of Americans, my heart melted watching Gus Walz, the teenage son of vice presidential candidate Tim Walz, leap from his seat to shout “That’s my dad! That’s my dad!” during the Democratic National Convention.

Walz suffers from a learning disability, but that didn’t stop some on the right for mocking the passion displayed during one of the event’s defining moments.

Longtime conservative commentator Ann Coulter wrote “Talk about weird …” in a social media post that has since been deleted. Wisconsin radio host Jay Weber went even further, writing (then deleting) on social media, “Sorry, but this is embarrassing for both father and son. If the Walz’s represent today’s American man, this country is screwed.” He also described Walz’s son with an expletive, then later claimed he wasn’t aware of the teenager’s learning disability, as if that would make the attack fair game.

By the way, Weber’s radio program was summarily cancelled.

Tommy Vietor, a co-host on Pod Save American and a former Barack Obama staffer, mocked Coulter in the replies of her since-deleted post.” I can see why a child loving their parents would feel foreign to you,” he wrote. Attorney and TV celebrity Star Jones was more blunt, writing on Instagram, “There is a special place in Hell for adults who bully children.”

One can only wonder what would prompt Coulter and others on the right to deride Walz expressing genuine love for his father. Perhaps, Coulter and other members of her right-wing fraternity – who made heinous comments too obscene to repeat – are unaware of the deep, unrestrained affinity and admiration on display between father and son. Jealousy? Resentment? Political opportunism? Regardless, it was a disgraceful, tasteless display of behavior.

That being said, there were some on the right who praised Walz’s. Daily Wire co-founder Ben Shapiro, a supporter of Donald Trump, described Walz’s reaction on social media as “really quite nice.” Meghan McCain, daughter of the late Republican Senator John McCain, criticized any accounts attacking Gus.

The exchange between Walz and his son is noteworthy for a multitude of reasons independent of partisan politics. There has been no shortage of articles and literature chronicling the supposed crisis in male relationships. Websites and publications such as Salon, Men’s Health, Psychology Today and others have written at length on the lack of real personal camaraderie and intimacy among American men. Some psychologists and mental health experts have begun to refer to the current situation as a public health crisis.

American men are in a state of crisis when it comes to male companionship. That being said, there are a number of reasons why this situation exists. We live in a society where men are taught to be strong, rugged, and brawny. While these expectations have been punctured to a certain extent, they are still prevalent enough to give many men pause in engaging in behavior that may be seen as deviating from what is seen as appropriate behavior.

To be sure, not all men are held hostage to such isolated experiences. There are some who are secure enough and have no apprehensions opening up and sharing their emotions with other men. They realize that doing so does not make them less masculine or emasculated. In fact, in other parts of the world, particularly in Europe and Africa, men are very intimate with one another. Heterosexual men kissing one another on the cheek, hugging and in some cases, holding hands is common, and no one blinks an eye.

When it comes to relationships and sexuality, America is still a very young nation compared to the rest of the world, and we are evolving on a number of issues. Transforming perceptions of masculinity (and femininity) and sexuality in general is one such issue. Hopefully, as our society moves further into the 21st century, more men will realize bromance is not a sign of vulnerability or weakness, but rather a strong endorsement of manhood.

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Copyright 2024 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.

Donald Trump’s campaign is in a fierce tailspin as his failed attacks on Kamala Harris haven’t been able to slow down her growing popularity.

“It’s very clear the former president is unraveling. He’s having a complete meltdown,” Ashley Etienne, a former Joe Biden staffer and political advisor, said during a recent segment on Anderson Cooper’s CNN show. “Kamala Harris has got him a chokehold that is really driving him to the point of insanity, and really driving his campaign to the point of paralysis.”

Harris is officially the Democratic presidential nominee. Nonetheless, Trump has continued to describe the vice president’s elevation to the top of her party’s ticket as “unconstitutional” and accused her of taking part in a “coup.” Recently, Trump told a group of reporters that he was “very angry “at Harris and ranted, “I think I’m entitled to personal attacks.”

“I don’t have a lot of respect for her intelligence, and I think she’ll be a terrible president,” Trump added.

During a campaign rally in Pennsylvania last week, Trump went off script and declared himself more attractive than Harris.

“I say that I am much better looking. I’m a better-looking person than Kamala,” Trump declared to a crowd of his supporters. For a man to compare his attractiveness to a woman’s is odd and arguably creepy. And if Trump genuinely believes he supersedes Harris in the looks department, he needs to take a good look in a mirror.

He also bizarrely claimed Harris is not Black and only started “pretending” to be Black when she decided to run for political office. And he continues his perverse obsession with crowd size, falsely bragging he had a bigger crowd at the Ellipse in Washington D.C. during the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection than Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. enjoyed at the Lincoln Memorial for his “I Have a Dream” speech in August 1963, which drew an estimated 250,000 people.

Trump also falsely claimed that a crowd that showed up to greet Harris at the Detroit airport simply didn’t exist. “There was nobody on the plane, and her campaign used ‘A.I.’ instead,” Trump declared. This would probably come as a major surprise to the 15,000 fans in attendance, captured on video camera by multiple news outlets.

There are a number of reasons the right-wing obsession and fascination with Harris is so rampant. Apart from her being the Democratic’s presidential candidate, she is a biracial woman of color and one of a very small number of women of color in Congress. She is intelligent, attractive, and unapologetically direct in a professional sense.

Harris exudes an unabashed, refreshing level of confidence. She is the embodiment of the living nightmare for many right wingers. Black, biracial, confident, candid and competent. She epitomizes pretty much everything many of them dislike. For a first-term congressperson to have struck such fear into a sizable sector of a political movement is really interesting.

Trump has claimed President Biden deployed the FBI to Mar-a-Lago with the intent to assassinate him. He accused Biden of “faking” having the Covid virus. He falsely claims Democrats want to murder babies after birth, and that Venezuela is releasing its convicts from prison and sending them to the United States with the current administration’s blessing. And, of course, he is still touting the same lie that he, not Joe Biden, was the winner of the 2020 election.

The truth is Trump is not funny. There is nothing amusing about his rhetoric. He’s not confused. He is a mentally unhinged person.

The media should be discussing this alarming reality every day. Rather than treating Trump as if he is a run of the mill candidate when he clearly is not, and begin reporting him for what he is — an older man who has already reached the stage of mental illness and is rapidly becoming worse as time progresses.

One can only wonder how many Republicans — and segments of the media — would have demanded invoking the 25th Amendment had Joe Biden stated such a litany of falsehoods. I think we know the answer.

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Copyright 2024 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.

Democratic Vice Presidential nominee Tim Walz and his fellow Democrats ratified ample changes during the two years they’ve had control of the Minnesota Legislature, from expansions of abortion and LGBTQIA+ rights to tax credits and other forward initiatives aimed at making life easier for families.

Walz has been an activist governor of Minnesota with a strong progressive agenda. And I’d like to focus on one key element of that agenda: requiring public and charter schools to provide free breakfasts and lunches to all students. Walz was literally embraced by elementary students when he signed the bill into law in 2023. Interestingly, child care has long been a defining issue for Kamala Harris, and Walz’s conscientious policies may very well have played a role in selecting him as her running mate.

Initiatives like free meals for school-aged children have encountered hostile opposition from Republican lawmakers, who question why the government should help feed kids. The fact there is such a stark division between the two parties over this humane policy highlights the distinction between the humanitarian populism of the Democrats and the more Darwinist, jingoistic populism of the conservative Republican right. The National School Lunch Program dates back to 1946, passed into law with bipartisan support.

A major reason for the policy is common human decency. Children do not decide to be born into families that are economically disadvantaged or  that cannot afford to feed their children appropriately. It is unfair and unjust to penalize them for a situation not of their making. In addition, studies demonstrate children who are deprived of adequate nutrition will grow up to be less physically robust and less productive adults than those who are well fed, so society is less prosperous as a result. Thus, making sure that young children are receiving adequate nutrition is a sagacious investment.

There’s a strong case to be made that child nutrition programs more than pay for themselves by creating a healthier, higher-earning future workforce. In other words, this is one area where there really is a free lunch.

The individuals behind Project 2025, a very reliable barometer for what a second Trump administration is inclined to do, don’t agree. The 900 pages of the project’s, “Mandate for Leadership,” lays out a detailed policy agenda and focuses on feeding students as something that should be reined in.

“Federal school meals increasingly resemble entitlement programs,” the document warns, as if this is self-evidently a bad thing. A bit farther down, it reads, “The U.S.D.A. should not provide meals to students during the summer unless students are taking summer-school classes.”

I would argue all children should have access to free meals. Goodness knows we are a wealthy enough nation to provide such an option. Moreover, doing so would alleviate many stigmas and obstacles for students. Over the past few years, we have read about and witnessed a series of incidents in various school districts that have resulted in embarrassment and humiliation for students.

Among such actions have been stamping a child’s hand with “I need lunch money,” throwing children’s meals away after they had been served, providing them with sunflower butter and jelly sandwiches rather than a hot lunch, prohibiting students from participating in extracurricular activities, and even going as far as threatening to place students with a considerable school meal debt in foster care.

When students are made to clean the cafeteria as punishment for being unable to pay for lunch, you don’t have to read between the lines to see early traces of the same system that disproportionately punishes low-income and historically disadvantaged adults for minor debt. The undeniable truth is subjecting students to embarrassment because of a lack of funds to pay for a school lunch is cruel, inhumane, and arguably obscene. Thankfully, certain lawmakers are paying attention.

The No Shame at School Act, introduced by Minnesota Sen. Tina Smith and Rep. Ilhan Omar, barred any kind of identification of students who can’t pay for lunch at school, like wristbands or hand stamps. It also would prohibit schools from publishing lists of students who owe money for school meals and from using debt collectors to recoup meal fees. The legislation also would result in more children being eligible for free or reduced-price school meals and provide schools retroactive school meal reimbursement for students who are certified for free or reduced-price school meals later in the school year.

Although these are excellent steps to rectify previous problematic behavior, I am still of the mindset that providing universal meals to school children is the most effective course of action. Doing so would erase, or at least heavily mitigate, many stigmas.

Amen Walz and forward-looking politicians in other states who had the compassion and foresight to implement such a humane policy to combat the serious issue of food insecurity. Millions of students will be better off due to your altruistic efforts.

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Copyright 2024 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.