I REFUSE TO CALL DONALD TRUMP "RACIST"

Despite my Facebook post on how wrong I was about Donald Trump, in presuming that his campaign antics as a presidential candidate would be succeeded by an aptly mellowed, dignified and pragmatic profile of a president of the world’s most powerful nation, I am still convinced that Donald Trump is- as a person - a very nice man. I am also convinced that Donald Trump is not a true mold of what one would regard as a racist person. He is just a white person dealing with political issues that are predominantly race-related and he is taking the side a preponderant white American electorate that is imbued with the nationalism that is currently sweeping Europe and the rest of the world.

America is undergoing its own metamorphosis which may differ from the Arab Spring and the wave of the African national of the liberation struggle era, but it is not alone in this fundamental search for itself.

Personally, I think it is by sheer coincidence that the Trump era of a virtual far right nationalistic stance follows the administration of the country’s first black president; I think President Obama’s high ratings upon leaving the White House is indicative of the gratitude that Americans have towards the man who gave them back their country after the war mongering years of the Bush administration and a depressed economy. When Americans say they want their country back, it should not be inferred that they are referring to the Obama era; they in fact are joining the flood of nationalism that inevitably comes with the debris of xenophobia. It’s in Europe too.

As a matter of fact, Donald Trump has shown a begrudgingly increasing warmth, admiration and respect for Obama since succeeding the latter. He has spoken of a “liking” for Obama; and Donald Trump is not good with lies because it takes only a second for him to contradict himself when attempting to escape from his box of bluntness. It takes a great deal of sophistication to lie and sustain it and we all discern that Donald Trump does not possess much of that attribute. But he is real; he is himself. He depicts himself, and it is convincing, as a loving husband, a doting father and a protective patriarch.

Despite his uncanny African-American body language when he speaks, Donald Trump belongs to his race group and together with the voters behind him he sees most problems facing America today as being from clusters of people of race groups that are not white. That would probably synchronize with his adamantly firm hand of friendship towards Russia, hitherto the traditional American nemesis on the one hand, and his build-the-wall utterances against Mexico,  anti-Iran rhetoric and blanket banning of peoples of a given race and religion from entering America.

That in itself, in my books, is not racist; bigotry may be, but not my textbook definition of racism. To me, racism is when one purposelessly shames another and proceeds to deprive them of their fundamental rights on the basis of race; or when they use prejudice to debase integrity in order to satisfy a perverted sense of superiority over others. Donald Trump genuinely, albeit naively, believes all that he wants to do will solve America’s problems of terrorist attacks, unemployment and an increasingly fragile economy.

Donald Trump’s foreign policy may not appear to place much emphasis on relations with African countries but his campaign outbursts of an African continent that deserves re-colonisation because its people are worse off than during the colonial era, and his vitriol on African leaders who stash the wealth of their countries in America and other western countries, may trigger an unexpected foreign policy crack down on some African countries; in some respects, hopefully so.

That would not be necessarily motivated by racist intentions; Africa does not impress him and he has said that much. In fact, he has extended it to the plight of African Americans whom he urged during the campaign, to try “something new” because voting for the Democrats had allegedly not helped the African American cause. He has thus, clustered his black compatriots with their African brothers and sisters and labelled them “lazy and only good for sex”.

That was rough, wild and hurting, but when a people seem incapable of rising out of helplessness and despondency over long periods and in spite of interventions by others, some extreme critical utterances seem invited.

I do not think for instance that using episodic judgment over problems one faces and attributing the cause factor to a race group is racist in itself. If for instance there is credible statistics and other factual trends indicating that a given race group is at the bottom of the food chain despite having the resources to exploit fertile lands and opportunities, it would not be racist to refer to that group as “stupid and lazy”. If trends and facts show that a certain race group lags behind in innovative development approaches, is given to substandard infrastructure, has a systemic default rating in exploratory and scientific pursuits, is riddled with corrupt societal frameworks, has a predilection for a reckless lifestyle and continues to provide its communities with subhuman facilities-- it would not, in my view, be racist to label such a group as “stupid and lazy,” or even consider it inferior. The facts speak for the expressions, and the labelled people have the God-given powers to release themselves from such a cesspit of contempt by other races. Africa comes to is here.

Donald Trump might feel that enough time and resources have been spent on Africans who never seem to rise above the poverty lines and he should not be blamed or labelled as racist for referring to our real position in the food chain and other aspects of human development. If successive African leaders despise their own people, expose them to abject poverty, deny them their fundamental freedoms, trample on them, incarcerate them, haunt their freedom of expression instruments, plunder their natural resources and reserves etc, then they deserve the strong words Donald Trump has used during his campaigns; he may use them again. The words carry surreal poetic justice because Africans had a choice to be different, but unlike other race groups, opted to tolerate poor leadership and accept to remain in their demeaning status. Africans have declared themselves a derogatory race group. Other race groups continue to evolve in perceptions, philosophies and societal systems. The Africa of today is not far from that of the 1960's, close to their period of attainment of independence. For some, the last infrastructural development still working today, were built during the colonial era.

Why blame Donald Trump for seeing it and saying it as it is!

We do not disown Africa!

We are not ashamed of being Africans!

But we are certainly dissatisfied with the texture of the African, when it comes to the pursuit of basic psychological needs and the African’s ability to stand up and be counted; to define African leadership and choose standards of dignity and high stature. We have to start acting and reacting like humans if we are not to be classified as sub-human. Stand up and be counted.

Plunderers of national wealth are thieves, not heroes!