By Dr. E. Faye Williams
As I am sitting here watching special counsel Jack Smith deliver his statement regarding the third indictment of someone who should never have been president of the United States, I’m so sad as I think about all the great African-American men and women who never even had a chance to run for high office; yet they contributed so much to this nation even as they were enslaved, brutalized, denied a fair chance at education, jobs, fair housing.
Some were even denied the right to live because they were lynched! No one ever deserved to go through what many of our people went through — or what too many still go through just to live in a nation where so many still don’t even wish us well.
Today, Donald Trump who has had every advantage in life – far more than he ever deserved as he abused others, and despite his horrible behavior, his insane accusations about people who at least try to do the right thing, is finally being indicted for the third time and we are still hoping he is finally going to pay – but think of all the lives he’s ruined. Think of the undeserved riches he’s always enjoyed at the expense of so many of the poor souls who would still vote for this madman.
I’m angry as I think about the suffering this man, and many others have caused, to deliberately limit opportunities for others far more deserving than this pitiful man and others like him.
The tragedy is there are still too many just like him running for the very office Trump has violated so many times.
They lead people on to give them their last dime and their vote; yet they have no intention of making things better for these people. Forget the likes of Ron DeSantis, too. Wake up and do your part to save our democracy for all of us.
Growing up, my mother taught me so much about my responsibility to make a positive difference in everything I do.
Once I left home, I was blessed even more to have teachers that some may still call controversial.
In a recent article, Dr Maulana Karenga reminded us of Frantz Fanon. He also taught me Swahili and inspired me to become the first African-American woman to Chair a very woke group of teachers called the Black Educators in the Los Angeles City School System.
We’d gather, and he armed us with valuable information that has stayed with me throughout my life.
Fanon was a freedom fighter, radical psychiatrist, revolutionary theorist and deep thinker, diplomat, and visionary for bringing into being a new man, woman, and world. You must read Wretched of the Earth.
We are reminded that to free ourselves and humanity from the anti-Black and anti-human oppression and a legacy of Europe, we must not only defeat our oppressors and that legacy, its offspring and imitators of every kind. We must also destroy within ourselves the will to emulate and be like them. Let’s appreciate who we really are!
Dr. Karenga taught us to proudly wear our Afros and dashikis and treat each other like royalty. We became acquainted with Rev. Jesse Jackson who taught us the value of political action; Hon. Mervyn Dymally taught us the value of higher education. Among our heroes and sheroes were Min. Louis Farrakhan, Malcolm X, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, Ella Baker, Fannie Lou Hamer, Julian Bond, Diane Nash, Harry Belafonte and Shirley Chisholm.
We learn from them to stand up and plead our cause. Don’t allow our children to grow up thinking there was something positive about slavery. Teach them the inhumanity of slavery, and that white people were and still are the only beneficiaries of slavery.
Dr. E. Faye Williams is national chair of the National Congress of Black Women, Inc. Contact her via www.nationalcongressbw.org.
