Make no mistake, the reopen protests are all about white privilege

A group of protesters, aka Trump morons, just want to get their hair done. Yeah, those are MAGA hats in the background. Surprised?

I’ve watched Donald Trump fail upward for my entire adult life.

Bas relief on the old Bonwit Teller Building in Manhattan that Donald Trump destroyed during construction of his edifice.

The first time I ever heard of him was when he fucked over the Museum of Art over the Bonwit Teller bas reliefs when he was doing the demolition for Trump Tower.

The irony is that had he done nothing other than been a silver-spoon asshole, he wouldn’t have destroyed so many people. But no, he sees himself as a Master of the Universe though he’s nothing but a shameless sociopath starved for unrequited love from his shitty parents. He’s the confluence of mankind’s worst qualities. He’s venal, greedy, amoral with zero empathy and immense power.

Barack Obama was too much for him to bear. Obama was smart, eloquent, truly talented and just too fucking cool. Trump knows deep inside he is no Barack Obama and it kills him. It also apparently offended the majority of white people who said Obama “took sides” after the then-president said a cop acted stupidly for arresting a prominent professor in his own house EVEN AFTER THE COP KNEW IT WAS GUY’S HOUSE!

After that, Obama said if he had a son he’d look like Trayvon Martin (which if you look at his girls you’d know he’s probably right).

Obama said, “I’m a black man,” and white folks across the political and economic spectrum lost their fucking minds. They feared losing their privileged status in these United States, and Trump knew how to sell that fear and resentment to those folks because they were already in the market, and all he had to do was close.

The Republican Party has exploited racial fear and resentment for decades. Policies are in place that actively harm people of color and marginalized communities, yet the social safety nets that would benefit everyone, including rural, low-wage white voters, are derided as a free ride for undeserving moochers and takers.

The food supply chain is not designed to do anything more than provide cheap, processed foods stuffed with corn syrup, sugar and salt for a diet that is literally killing people who must then scuffle for health coverage to pay for dependency on pharmaceuticals to offset the effects of poor nutrition and unending stress.

Preparing that food from field to table is also a low-wage proposition for most involved. These folks also tend to be what are now considered “essential workers,” who just months ago were the subject of a debate over whether it was worth paying them $15 an hour.

In another bit of irony, the millions of layoffs in April actually increased wages because these low-end-of-the-scale earners were lopped off. That should tell you how deep the inequality runs in this nation. You’d think there would be some empathy flowing from our leaders down to the people, but you’d be wrong.

What does our conservative leadership think of these people who are exposed, vulnerable and dying in droves?

As Nikole Hannah-Jones, the Pulitzer Prize winning editor of the New York Times 1619 Project notes:

In other words, “GET YOUR LAZY BLACK ASSES BACK ON THE WHEEL!”

In a recent series of articles from the Heritage Foundation, it seems the overseers feel the proletariat might become too comfortable trying to survive the Coronavirus Pandemic. Rachel Greszler, Research Fellow in Economics, Budget and Entitlements at the Heritage Foundation wrote:

“The CARES Act’s additional $600 per week in federal pandemic unemployment benefits is certainly generous. Too generous, in fact: It’s caused an overwhelming majority of unemployed Americans to receive more from unemployment benefits as from their previous paychecks. In many cases, workers are receiving at least twice their usual paychecks.

“These excessive benefits are no doubt welcome to the newly unemployed workers. But in an ironic twist, businesses have factored those benefits into their decisions to furlough or lay off workers instead of keeping them on the payrolls. And those benefits are making it harder for businesses to reopen or ramp back up after temporary shutdowns and slowdowns.

“In essence, businesses—especially hard-hit ones such as restaurants, hotels and retailers—are having to compete with the federal government’s generous unemployment benefits.

“When you consider that someone who usually makes $600 per week is receiving $900 from unemployment insurance, it’s not surprising that they might not want to go back to work. After all, the additional benefits amount to an extra $10,000 between April and July 31, when the $600 per week is set to expire.

Another bill, the House Democrats’ HEROES Act (a partisan laundry list that spans more than 1,800 pages), would extend those benefits through the end of next January, including additional extensions through March 31, 2021.”

But what about these REOPEN! people screaming at the media, waving flags (American, Confederate, Nazi) and brandishing firearms across the country?

Kandist Mallett at Teen Vogue wrote:

“Whether it’s ‘taking back their country,’ ‘making America great again,’ or ‘reopening America,’ the goals of these white Americans are rooted in a desire to return to their white dominance and white comfort.”

White folks appear to be ready to sacrifice Gramps so they can get back to their everyday of hamburgers, water parks and hairdos, even though we are in the midst of a global pandemic that has killed 90,000 Americans to date.

To that end, Trump announced:

“I just want to make something clear. It’s very important. Vaccine or no vaccine, we’re back. And we’re starting a process. . . . In many cases they don’t have vaccines and a virus or a flu comes and you fight through it. . . . People sometimes, I guess, we don’t know exactly yet, but it looks like they become immune — at least for a short while. It may be for life. But you fight through it.”

We’re at a crossroads, America.

For once, let’s take the road less traveled.