The Aunt Jemimah Post

“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself…” ~Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt

First, to those who may be offended by the title of this post: please accept my deepest apologies, particularly to those fellow-Americans who have awakened to the realities of our Country’s greatest achievements and deepest faults. As both attributes are destined to follow us with every step we take. While our virtues can easily inspire us, it is the facing down of our deepest faults that ultimately make us strong. Do keep up the good work; your strength unites us all.

Though kept from the public at his insistence, when President Roosevelt uttered his famous words about a fear that can paralyze needed efforts, he was physically paralyzed from a bout with polio in 1921.  Sadly, he was unable to stand or walk without support, or excruciating pain. According to his son, his own arm would be in pain as his father grasped it tightly while resisting severe pain as he stood addressing large audiences.

Yet, despite his debilitating illness, FDR would go on to become one of our country’s greatest presidents that ushered it through the Great Depression, WWII, and back to prosperity with his “New Deal” programs. Though spoken nearly a Century ago, these enduring words from FDR’s 1933 Inaugural Address still speaks to us:

“This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”

Currently, with a President Trump in the Oval Office who is the antithesis of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt  in extraordinary courage, resilience, and a genuine respect for humanity, we Americans now have plenty to fear. Yet, we can’t afford to let fear stop us, which is FDR’s immortal message to us.

A few days ago, I get an email from a local candidate on Independence Day. I was okay with it until I read the following, and I quote:

“What I love most about this day, however, is the reminder that, from its very start, our country has been moving ever closer towards fulfilling the founders’ extraordinary claim that all of us are created equal. Our country’s history, which started as a bold experiment, has gone in fits and starts. Progress has never been a straight line, but with each generation we get closer to meeting that promise.”

Then I got pissed off.  First, I hate that stupid, baseless claim (often repeated) that our country started as a “bold experiment.”  What a bunch of crap!  Did not the early patriots fight and die for a greater vision of a happier life, as artfully expressed by Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin?  Seems this person, a longtime member of our state legislature, was way too willy-nilly about all the pain and suffering, and terrible deaths, which many activists have endured in our country since its inception.

Sadly, the intense fight for both civil and equal rights continues. Many Americans still live in fear and poverty, simply because way too many of our elected representatives are too damn greedy, selfish, and down-right too stupid to really care about others, or their own country.

Yet, these backward individuals are the first to campaign claiming to help. But, once in office, they don’t!  And it really pisses me off.  After all, we Americans have a life to run, and thus don’t have the time to keep fighting the good fight, but we must.

That said, I decide to give Lady Candidate the benefit of the doubt. So, I took my precious time to write and share my perspective. I wanted to be helpful and not hurtful. Well, several days have passed, and I have yet to hear a peep from this candidate re my email to her. I even gave her references to my FaceBook posts and website, titled “Reading ‘What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?’ by Frederick Douglass”.  Hmm, now this makes you wonder.

So, is this person real, or is she a closet racist, or is she still bound by historic commands to keep the races separate lest she also be mistreated? Hence, the above title is really asking if America’s White folks still consider themselves privileged, considering all the suffering that the ill-begotten dreams of New World opportunists created so long ago, followed by the protests and the freedom marches still ongoing.

If so, then it’s time to wake up from the illusion of being privileged my little munchkins, albeit difficult. Otherwise my fellow White Americans, you are indeed slaves to a special fear, a fear inherited from birth that needs to be overcome rather than falsely cherished, a fear that was successfully exploited by presidential candidate Donald Trump (and Russia) in 2016!  Think about it.

Meanwhile, lest we not forget that behind the horrors of American slavery was fear, which sadly represents a severe state of lack for both the slave and the slave owner. Yet, today, we see a different kind of slave, though a slave nonetheless! Abundantly wealthy, usually wears a designer suit and likely a silk shirt and tie (made in China), he is both mentally poor and spiritually unawares.

Meet President Donald Trump, the New American Slave, a slave to his own fears. Wake up Donald and remember who you are, God loves you.

(11 July 2017: Added a few words)

President Donald Trump / Fox News

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