Improved political climate starts with voters
I’m crossing my fingers that good conquers evil — sooner rather than later — allowing our nation to get back to a kind of normalcy that has been sorely missing these past two years. Any way you look at it, it has been a very nasty, hateful and mean-spirited period for America. When was the last time you can recall a president referring to a hate march at which a person was killed, and concluding there were “very fine people on both sides”? One can reasonably argue that this wrongheaded assessment gave cover and rise to other such hateful demonstrations that erupted around the country. The good news: We rallied together to condemn them. The bad news: The haters simply went undercover, biding their time to strike again. Today, unfiltered and incessant acts of hate have morphed into a kind of new normal. It is now “OK” for the president of the United States to brand the media as an enemy of the people, or isolate certain reporters, or praise candidates who have physically assaulted journalists. Vitriolic words are no longer the weapons of choice. Today rhetoric is being augmented by pipe bombs sent through the mail. Is this making America great again? I don’t think so. Time for us as Americans to take charge of draining the immoral swamp that has been created. The president’s “we are one” spiel in response to the new terrorism in our own backyard rings hollow. His own lack of civility is tantamount to a lit match, and is absolutely and unequivocally unbecoming of a president. His crude tweets targeting the media as the enemy continue to be both dangerous and inflammatory and a prescription for future disaster. To its credit, the media is fighting back against Trump’s “fake news” label by working harder to fact check and diving deeper into the issues. It’s also taking definitive stands against insensitive, racially charged episodes that often go hand- in-hand with an uncouth milieu. It was smart, for example, for NBC to remove Megyn Kelly for her Halloween “blackface” comments. For a supposedly intelligent woman to make such an unintelligent assessment that blackface isn’t as bad as folks make it out to be is stunning. Could she not have consulted her colleagues of color, or researched the history of degradation and exclusion in an industry that blackface represented — an exclusion that continues to this day? Changing and challenging the media and political landscape are just a couple of ways to fight back. There needs to be a strong message sent in the midterm elections — and that must be that we as a nation — no matter our party affiliation — stand strong for an America that supports fairness, equality and the dignity of all people. There can be no room for haters like Florida guberna- torial candidate Ron DeSantis, who continues to racialize his opponent, Andrew Gillum, or voter obstructionists like Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp, who is running against Stacey Abrams while upholding policies that deny her supporters the right to vote on a technicality. Just as important as the message of a fair and equal America, it is also important for us to support those organizations that hold leadership accountable, like the National Association of Black Journalists; my friend Richard Prince and his online Journal-isms, which keeps tabs on what’s happening in the world of diversity in journalism; the ACLU; the NAACP; and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights. It may also help for someone to work with the president so he understands the power of his words and his responsibility to carry himself in a way that reflects the dignity that America should always stand for.