The Lamentations of President Trump

Puerto Rico was drowning, literally, when Hurricane Maria hit the Island on September 20th, and as of today when writing this article, a full 7 days after the Hurricane President Trump hasn't visited the Island and relief has been slow at best. Instead of focusing on a growing humanitarian crisis, our so-called Leader spent the weekend attacking Steph Curry and the NFL.

It was interesting to watch the President call NFL players protesting police brutality by taking a knee "sons of bitches", it was even more interesting to watch him say it had nothing to do with race. It has everything to do with race. The entire point of taking a knee is to protest police brutality against blacks in this country.

The NFL didn't back down though, all weekend, hundreds of players took a knee, many of them with the owners of the teams that had previously been Trump supporters. It is mind-boggling that he picked this fight, but he seems to be enjoying it. He then went on to praise NASCAR for their patriotism. Let's ponder that for a moment. About 75% of NFL players are black and NASCAR is a freezer full of Vanilla Ice Cream with maybe some sprinkles thrown in here or there.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. Made his feelings known not with a knee, but with a tweet. He tweeted: "All Americans R granted rights 2 peaceful protests Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable-JFK"

The Presidents Press Secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, stated that players should protest the police on the field protecting them, not the National Anthem. When a concerned and obviously surprised member of the press asked if she was actually advocating they protest the police she replied by saying of course not. Oh, okay, now the podium in the Whitehouse is used for sarcasm, great.

The President continued to insist this was not about race; however, the San Antonio Spurs coach, Gregg Popovich saw it very differently. He stated in an interview with NBC News that "race is the elephant in the room", he went on to say it needed to be talked about constantly. He said people get bored and say "oh is it that again? Are they pulling the race card again? Why do we have to talk about that?" His answer was because it is uncomfortable and it's hard to talk about, but it has to be a part of the discourse for things to change. He went on to say it has to be especially uncomfortable for white people because we were born with an advantage in this country. His remarks summed up the problems with race relations in this country in a 1-minute 35-second soundbite.

So, let's talk about it. Let's talk about the fact that after the civil war most "free" slaves were sharecroppers and weren't that better off. Let's talk about Jim Crow laws that began in the 1890's. Let's talk about the fact that in the United States, between 1882 and 1968 there were 4,743 lynchings. Stop proclaiming there is no such thing as white privilege when there is clear evidence that white people have had the upper hand for a long time in America. And let's stop pretending that our current President doesn’t prefer white people over people of color. The man is clearly fonder of the lighter skinned population of the world. He has demonstrated that particular preference time and again with clearly racist language and actions, and with that, I'll take a knee.

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