A Guy’s View: Feed on milk and honey, not crumbs
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
Extract from the inscription on the Statue of Liberty.
In spite of his blazing track record, President Donald Trump still managed to shock the world by declaring that he wanted persons migrating to the United States to come from Norway rather than Haiti and Africa. The latter countries he reportedly described as stool-hole countries.
The world has come to expect that kind of behaviour from President Trump. What was especially distasteful, however, was the way members of his Republican Party danced around questions about the comment.
Some blatantly lied about it. Others who were in the room said that they could not recall the words that were spoken, although they remembered that he used strong language. Still others said that the party had an agenda that should not be diverted because of what was said, without saying what was said.
The stage was Washington, but it is absolutely essential that Caribbean people recognise how this relates to them. The American President did not distinguish between Nigeria and South Africa. He labelled all African countries as a hole for stool. Since this is his view of that continent, all persons who are of African descent must understand that he has a certain view of them.
Those Americans who describe themselves as African-American may be too deeply asleep to recognise that in his speech, the President of their country was disclosing what he thinks about them and their ancestry. They have lived in the midst of that environment all their lives and may thus be numb.
We in the Caribbean cannot separate ourselves from Haiti. The only difference between Haiti and the rest of us is economic circumstances. The day we become self-assertive like Haiti did, the same course of destruction that was wrought on Haiti by France and America may come down upon us. Or we may experience a hurricane or an earthquake. It could be Haiti today and any other Caribbean country tomorrow.
One may well imagine the excuse that Trump was referring to countries and not people. That theory disappears once one looks at his preferred country for immigrants – Norway. President Trump is clearly remaining in pursuit of his promise to make America great again. Clearly by great, he means white.
Trump’s lack of civility has led to questions about his sanity. Trump may not be the sharpest pencil in the box, but he is not crazy. He knows what he is doing and he is doing it well.
While he is the spokesman, he is surrounded by many men and women who think exactly like him. They are the persons who give effect to his programmes. He has set out to whiten America and they have joined him on his journey.
It should also be recognised that there are millions of Americans who think like him and believe that he is doing an excellent job. He is not on a one man crusade.
His job is made easier because there are people who are not in his party but share his philosophy. So that regardless of how outrageous he becomes, there are those in the opposing Democratic Party that quietly wish him success.
To demonstrate this point, the Democrats have for a number of years been trying to come up with an arrangement that would prevent persons who went to that country as children from being deported. Barrack Obama was an African man who was President of the United States and he could not persuade Congress to send him a bill that would achieve that end. He ended up having to protect them by Executive Order. Trump promptly repealed that Order.
Some members of the Democratic Party have been saying that any continued funding of the Government should be dependent on a proposal to protect these Americans from deportation. But there are some Democrats who are not in agreement. They believe that the Government should continue to be run as usual and leave it to the mercy of people like Trump to look after the welfare of the very people that they have sworn to be rid of. They have promised this to their constituents.
Black Americans have lived in their mental custodial state for so long that many of them have no vision of reality or what is happening to them. They support political structures that offer them no more than crumbs, and they are happy with that.
“Lord, bless your children who walk in perfection
Who managed to master your will
Give them their share of sweet milk and wild honey
Provide bread of life till they’re filled
Feed the children but give me the crumbs from the table
I’ll wait for them down on my knees
I’d be ever so grateful for the crumbs from the table
For strength needed to follow Thee.”
These unfortunate words, penned by Nat Stuckey and made popular in Barbados by Sister Margrita Marshall, speak to the folly of those who labour under the Deuteronomy 28 curse and are in a deep sleep of ignorance. If the scriptures are true, they will wake up one day, but we should not join them in their slumber.
No Caribbean country is powerful enough to stand on equal footing in this dangerous world with behemoths like America, but shrewd leadership can keep us out of their clutches. The first step on this path is to know who we are and to understand their agenda. And always look a gift horse in the mouth.
There may be several persons in Caribbean countries who are of similar mind to the Trumps of America. The difference is that they are not in public service. They are more effectively placed, for they control economies. They hire and fire politicians as it suits their fancy, sometimes coopting the workers representatives along the way.
The words attributed to Mayer Amschel Rothschild are instructive: “Give me control of a nation’s money and I care not who makes the laws.”
If you are uncertain as to who controls a country, identify who controls the money. Caribbean Governments are all led by persons of African descent, but I am unaware of the country where the economy is in black hands.
Our leaders have an obligation to build these countries as strong, confident societies where their people are not second class citizens or feel the need to run into bondage in other people’s lands. If these countries are treated like mere economies, our people will always be at the bottom of the heap.