“Between A Rock And A Hard Place.”
As the nation’s two major political parties scramble for supremacy of this current political season, more is at stake than mere democracy. Black America faces inchoate choices which are not as clear as initially presented, for Trump has been cast as the boogeyman, that ultimate threat to black life, a racist. Similarly, his nemesis, Biden, plays the role of apparent friend, especially given his former role of wingman to America’s first black president Obama, but Shakespeare said, “All the world’s a stage, and men and women are but players.”
When Biden was climbing the greasy pole of politics in the nineties, he sacrificed the future of thousands, tens of thousands of kids to his ambition by consigning them to adult prisons for life. Most of these kids were black and brown. For a man running on his empathy, it takes a cold dude to condemn children to an eternity in a prison cell. As such, wisdom advises that both claimants be regarded with caution for both, for both can be asked, “Do black lives really matter?”
Trump, long demonized in media, seems beyond the pale, and Biden’s legislative background is little known except to journalists and scholars. Neither man really has a sterling history when it comes to black people. Indeed, quite the reverse. It is up to movement to demand clarity and better policies for black people. What the Obama years taught many blacks is that hopes and emotions are not enough.
From imprisoned nation, this is Mumia Abu-Jamal.
These commentaries are recorded by Noelle Hanrahan of Prison Radio.
