During night two of the Republican National Convention (RNC), one mission of Donald Trump’s campaign was to close the “empathy gap” between the incumbent and Joe Biden.  To make their point, the program included two sitting members of Congress who shared stories how Trump reached out to them in times of sorrow or need.

First, House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) related how Trump would call him on a regular basis following his being shot during practice for the Congressional baseball game in 2017.

Donald Trump would call to check on me throughout the following weeks, just to see how I was doing. That’s the kind of person he is. That’s the side of Donald Trump that the media will never show you.

Next came Ohio Representation Jim Jordan (R-OH).  He shared how Trump had comforted members of Jordan’s family following the loss of one of the congressman’s nephews.

For the next five minutes, family and friends sat in complete silence, as the President of the United States took time to talk to a dad who was hurting,  That’s the president I’ve gotten to know the last four years.

Reading about these two moments during the RNC took me back to one of the last dinners my wife and I enjoyed pre-pandemic.  We were visiting a friend in Orlando, Florida when our host raised the following issue that baffled her.  She used the example of a friend who is always there for members of her family, church and community in times of need.  However, this woman was also a strident Trump supporter.  Our friend could not understand why this woman would champion someone whose behavior was the antithesis of her own.

The answer is best summed up by the many variations of the adage about character and integrity attributed to people like UCLA basketball coach John Wooden or author C. S. Lewis.  All contain the same message.  Character is what we do when we think no one is looking.  I would add a corollary.  Character is what we do when there is nothing in it for me.  While aid to those in one’s own circle is admirable, service to the stranger is the true test of empathy and charity.

Which brings me back to the empathy gap between Biden and Trump.  Jacquelyn Brittany, the security guard at the New York Times building, who nominated Joe Biden for president, was just doing her job when they first crossed paths.  She was a stranger whose day was made a little brighter by the simple act of being acknowledged by someone who could easily have been excused for being lost in the moment, a meeting with the newspaper’s editorial board.  She, and others, like the Greg Weaver, the conductor on the Amtrak train the then Senator took to work every day, attested to Biden’s character.

In contrast, consider the examples of Scalise and Jordan.  Neither had any personal relationship or interaction with Trump before he moved into the White House.  Trump needed Scalise to carry his water to pass his tax cuts and spending priorities.  And Jordan, who has served as chair and then ranking member on the House Oversight Committee, has become the reliable sycophant aiding and abetting Trump’s shattering of the system of checks and balances enshrined in the Constitution.  These are hardly purely altruistic acts of empathy, they are business transactions.

Yes, Uncle Joe can be a little goofy at times.  And his natural tendency to get close to people can make some people uncomfortable.  But I’ll take that any day over a human back-scratcher whose clientele is those who can return the favor.

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP

TRUTH IN ADVERTISING ALERT:  The title of today’s post is another instance of “bait and switch” promotion.

TRUTH IN ADVERTISING ALERT #2:  I began drafting this post on July 7.   And as is often the case, I had no idea where the discussion would end up.  Many times the act of putting pen to paper (another Dr. ESP anachronism), rather than documentating the creative process,  becomes the impetus for further further exploration, restating the initial thesis and finding more unrelated connections.  All of which eventually results in the concluding question or declaration.

The Americans at heart are a pure and noble people; things to them are in black and white. It’s either ‘rawk’ or it’s not. We Brits putter around in the grey area.

~David Bowie

Donald Trump seldom tells the truth, but when he does, he is usually spot on.  One example was during the March 18 White House briefing on the coronavirus, when Trump labeled himself a “wartime president.”  That he is.  Since declaring his candidacy in June 2015 he has been at war with:

• Immigrants
• The Truth
• Science
• Members of His Own Administration
• Judges Who Follow the Law
• The U.S. Intelligence Community
• NATO
• The News Media
• Barack Obama’s Legacy, and now
• Members of His Own Family

And as of the Fourth of July, he is at war with history, taking on what has become known as the “cancel culture” movement.  When in fact, the term “cancel culture” more appropriately applies to the way American history has been portrayed since the arrival of the first Europeans on the North American continent.  Rather than “puttering around in the grey areas,” much of what my generation was fed in social studies classes was a sanitized version of our culture with more more attention paid to a chopped down cherry tree than slavery.

The story of America, for most of its existence, has been painted in black and white.  The earliest white spaces are covered with tales of adventurous sailors who mastered the Atlantic Ocean, colonists as white as the powdered wigs they donned bringing civilization to a “savage” frontier and soldiers, who armed with an overwhelming advantage in firepower, cleared the landscape of indigenous people.

NOTE:  This is where the July 7 draft ended and today’s thoughts begin.

For too many years, examples of what fills the black spaces in this metaphorical portrait of the United States, were few and far between.  Then, as is so frequently the case, events that alter the historical landscape come from the most unexpected places.  Until four days ago, I would have asked, “Who would have ever imagined the death of an unknown 46 year-old truck driver and security guard would make America confront the lasting legacy of slavery and Jim Crow?”  To some extent, George Floyd’s murder at the hands of those sworn to protect and preserve, not kill us, focused on the present and future.  How could this still happen in 2020?  What do we do now?

Something was still missing.  What was the intersection between where I was heading three weeks ago–the history of America in black and white–and the seismic shift in the attitude of many, particularly white Americans, about the lingering effects of once viewing African-Americans as first property, and later, as second class citizens?  And as suggested above, the answer came from the most unexpected of sources, Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton.  While Donald Trump and his apologists accuse those who question how we first allowed and continued to tolerate the honoring of traitors who violated their oath of allegiance to defend the Constitution, Cotton is the one who has made cancelling culture a cause celebre.  Not simple by opining about his view of America’s chronology, but attempting to legislate it.

On July 24, Cotton introduced the Saving American History Act of 2020 which “would prohibit the use of federal funds to teach the 1619 Project by K-12 schools or school districts.  Schools that teach the 1619 Project would also be ineligible for federal professional-development grants.”  For those unfamiliar with the project, the series was published in the New York Times in August 2019, 400 years after the first slave was brought to the New World.  It is a detailed narrative about slavery in America and its consequences.  Staff writer Nikole Hannah-Jones, who pitched the idea to the Times editorial board, has since been awarded a MacArthur “genius grant” and a Pulitzer Prize for her efforts.  Editor-in-chief of the Times Magazine Jake Silverstein described the series  as an opportunity to  view American history through a different lens “by considering what it would mean to regard 1619 as our nation’s birth year.”

Who could possibly argue a constant re-examination of history is a bad thing?  You guessed it, Senator Cotton.  In a July 26 interview with Arkansas Democrat-Gazette writer Frank Lockwood, Cotton doubles down.

As the founding fathers said, it was the necessary evil upon which the union was built, but the union was built in a way, as Lincoln said, to put slavery on the course to its ultimate extinction.

So, as I research my forthcoming biography of the Arkansas senator titled I Wish I Wasn’t in the Land of Cotton, I plan to ask him the following questions.

• Senator, I Googled the question, “Which founding fathers described slavery as a necessary evil upon which the union was built?”  The only name associated with the quote is yours.  Can you clarify which founding father made this claim and when?
• Senator, even if the founding fathers had said that, wouldn’t a more appropriate answer be, “They were wrong then.  And they are wrong now.”
• Senator, why did you take the phrase “on the course of its ultimate extinction,” out of context and add the phrase, “the union was built in a way?”  At the time he delivered what became known as “The House Divided” speech, upon accepting the Republican nomination for president in June 1858, Lincoln said that America faced two futures.  One in which the South prevails and slavery is legal in all states.  Or one in which the “opponents of slavery will arrest the  further spread of it, and place it when the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction.”
• Finally Senator, if you subscribe to the idea “the union was built in a way to put slavery on the course to its ultimate extinction,” why do you oppose removing the statues of men who violently opposed that course?

Which brings us full circle to the topic of looking at American history as being either black or white and its relationship to one other issue du jour which has flooded the TwitterSphere, “cultural appropriation.”  Conservative publications were quick to criticize Democratic congressional leaders for donning ceremonial Kente cloth during a press conference at which they announced proposed police reform legislation.  According to Forbes contributor Seth Cohen, “In doing so, they meant to honor Black lives. Instead, they appropriated African culture.”

So, where is the outrage when Tom Cotton appropriates what can only be described as the American experience by Blacks from 1619 to 1865 to justify his claims it was “necessary.”  I look forward to Cotton’s foray into cinema with his production of White Men Can’t Build Nations.

However, the ultimate misappropriation of culture comes from none other than Donald J. Trump.  Remember when the man “in the white hat” was the hero who came to the rescue.  The villains wore black.  This convention was popular between 1920 and 1950, and though not specifically racial in nature, “filmmakers expected audiences would understand the categorizations.”  (Source:  Investigating Information Society)  In the case of the Lone Ranger, he even wore a mask before it was mandated.  Now that’s what I call a positive role model.

In case you have not noticed, the current occupant of the White House may be perpetually orange, but he has switched the hue of his cranial attire.  When Trump pinned his hopes of re-election on RED states, he would always wear a similarly colored MAGA cap.  But as those once reliable jurisdictions turn more purple or even blue, Trump feels the need to more closely identify with his only remaining demographic.  Presto, the new ALL WHITE cap, a clear case of a bad guy appropriating the good guy culture. Ironically, Fortune magazine reports the WHITE version, while assembled in the United States, the material is made in RED China.  Xi whiz, who could have predicted that?

The Lone Ranger must be spinning in his grave.  And Tonto, too.

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP

The internet is ripe with teasers.  Mixed among the actual news stories on many sites, you can find advertisements disguised as titillating celebrity exposes or “never before seen” historical photographs.  My personal favorite is “wardrobe malfunctions,” which includes a still photograph displaying Elizabeth Taylor’s smallpox vaccination from the movie Cleopatra.  Who knew doctor Edward Jenner, who discovered the immunizing effect of mild doses of the disease, was of Egyptian origin going back to the first century B.C.E?

Major media outlets such as the Washington Post generally shy away from such come-ons.  Yet, I have to admit I was intrigued by the headline in this morning’s New York Times, “Roger Stone Uses Racial Slur on Radio Show.”  First thoughts?  Roger Stone using a racial slur is hardly what one would imagine as news.  And which far-right media outlet was trying to keep up with Alex Joneses?

Let’s start with the relevant facts.

• Stone was speaking with the African-American host of “The Mo’Kelly Show,” Los Angeles-based Morris W. O’Kelly.
• During a discussion of Stone’s recently commuted jail sentence, the guest is caught on mic telling someone else in the room with him, “I’m arguing with this Negro.”

The Times reports:

When Mr. O’Kelly asked him to repeat what he said, Mr. Stone let out a sigh, then remained silent for almost 40 seconds. Acting as if the connection had been severed, Mr. Stone vehemently denied that he used the slur.

Now there is more than enough evidence to accuse Roger Stone of being a dyed in the wool racist, but this is not one of them.  At worse, it confirms that when he and his emancipator Donald Trump say, “Make America Great Again,” they are talking about the America of the 1950s.  The term “Negro” may be an anachronism; it is not a slur.

Would the United Negro College Fund keep the word in its name if the board of directors thought it disparaged those it seeks to aid?  Would Martin Luther King have used the term 15 times in his August 1963 “I Have a Dream” oration at the Lincoln Memorial?  Would King have cautioned the nation, “There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights”?  Never once did I hear an African-American tell a white person, “just because brothers use the term among themselves, don’t assume it’s okay for you to use it.”

Every time the debate re-emerges over the proper nomenclature for different people of color, I am reminded of a conversation I once had with the only Black person I was close to growing up in the segregated South in the 1950s and 1960s.  Her name was Luttie Overby.  In 1925, she moved from her Durham, North Carolina home to Richmond, Virginia to take care of my then three year old mother and her two siblings so my grandmother could go back to work following her husband’s death.  She lived with my grandmother in an apartment on Monument Avenue (yes, that Monument Avenue) for the next 42 years.  To understand their relationship, Luttie was the female equivalent of Hoke Colburn and my grandmother was Miss Daisy.

Luttie was born in 1896 and lived to the ripe old age of 94.  In terms of race relations in the United States, imagine what she observed and experienced over her lifetime from the dark days of Jim Crow to the election of an African-American Douglas Wilder as governor of Virginia.  Which brings me back to that one conversation we had.  Luttie always referred to herself and her friends as “colored people.”  One time, after Black American became the preferred reference, I joked with her, “Luttie, you know you’re not colored any more, you’re Black now.”  To which she replied, “Jaybird (her nickname for me), I was colored when I was born and I’ll be colored when I die.”  Makes one wonder if there are spirits of a generation of Lutties who still hold court in the NAACP’s board room.

As Shakespeare might say, “A person of color by any other name is still a person, and surely deserves the same rights and privileges in life, regardless of the term they prefer to describe themselves.”   So, while I may be disappointed, even angry, folks like Roger Stone remain cloistered in a bygone era, I do not find his use of the word “Negro” nearly as offensive as his use of the word “this” as in “this Negro,” which tells us much more about his attitude toward Mr. O’Kelly.

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP