As a conservative black woman in the era of Donald Trump, this election cycle has resulted in a great deal of consternation for me. While voting for Hillary Clinton is not an option, Donald Trump’s repeated attempts to impugn Judge Gonzalo Curiel’s heritage and make blanket overgeneralizations about the plight of “the African-Americans” are indefensible and only serve to reinforce stereotypical views of the Republican Party as a whole. In spite of my reservations about Trump’s many foibles, the media’s Chicken Little routine and faux outrage is getting old.
On Sept. 30, Tavis Smiley, host of an eponymous program on PBS, gave a speech at Lehigh University entitled “Accountable: Making America as Good As its Promise.” At the end of his lecture, a student asked Smiley if the election of GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump would lead to the enslavement of African-Americans. Smiley’s answer evolved into a Time opinion piece entitled “Why I Fear America Could Enslave Black People Again,” which was published on Oct. 18. He concluded that the student’s fears were well founded and pointed to the Senate Republicans’ refusal to grant Judge Merrick Garland a hearing as evidence of Congress “mocking the Constitution” and ignoring the rule of law.
