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My Mama Hasn’t Spoken in Two Years, But I Want Her to Know Trump Lost
Racism robs black women like her while uplifting selfish men like Trump
I wish I could hear what mama would say about all of this. Before she fell ill two years ago, she was asking me, the veteran journalist, why so many white people found it okay to vote for and support Donald Trump. It was rhetorical. She wasn’t asking for my wisdom. She had more than enough of that. Hers always surpassed mine, particularly on matters of race. She was making an observation in the form of a question, that the idea of whiteness is so powerful and embedded in the nature of this place it convinced a majority of white people to elevate a man like Trump into the most powerful position in the most powerful nation in the world even as that nation was diversifying.
At least that’s how I remember one of the last conversations about politics and race I had with her. She can no longer talk. She hasn’t uttered a word since she was found on the floor of her home one morning two years ago. I’ll never forget rushing to the hospital and looking at her in a nondescript bed in a nondescript emergency room a short drive from where North Charleston police officer Michael Slager shot a fleeing Walter Scott multiple times in the back. She didn’t look at me. She couldn’t. A nurse would later…
