Saturday, 05 September 2020_That headline asks a surprising question, yet it’s one which was repeatedly expressed by African-Americans in Kenosha when I asked them for their evaluation regarding how all levels of government had responded to the profoundly shocking series of recent shootings there.
Boarded-up Kenosha looks like a community under siege, and they naturally wonder who is coming to help them. Kenoshans would assume that a visit by the occupant of the White House would be a positive thing and a sign that, yes, help is indeed coming.
So it was rather staggering how many Democratic leaders, their supporters and the mainstream media actually demanded that the President of the United States not visit somewhere inside the United States. I can’t imagine such a thing occurring almost anywhere else, yet for several days the national discussion was steered in this absurd and pointless direction.
The average American knew better: spinning the president’s visit as some sort of controversial, inflammatory and potentially dangerous act allowed for distraction from actual issues, such as constant brutality from the security apparatus, massive political apathy, disinvestment in Black areas, etc.
Crucially, “disinvestment” is the wrong word because it implies there was some historical era when the government or private banks actually invested in African-American communities. “Non-investment” is a far more accurate term.
However, Americans are infamous for their very short memories, combined with a penchant for rewriting history. This cultural trait may explain why their political classes could so easily keep pushing the impression that police brutality is something which was wholly created by Donald Trump.
What is interesting about today’s America is that one can finally hear voices in public which tell the truth about American racism, classism and imperialism, but these voices are overwhelmingly outnumbered by those afflicted by another cultural flaw: a constant desire to have an enemy to attack, to evangelize against and to feel superior to - the US used to have American Indians for that, but now many settle for Trump.
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