American Cruelty

Get the Point!

Of the many things that I miss about my father, Charles, who died 25 years ago, I miss our very frank discussions about American history the most.

Some time during my second year of law school back in '97, Pop called me around 4:00 a.m. and told me that he needed to drive to Miami, his hometown, to handle some business for his mother, Arilla, later that day. After “telling” me to come ride south with him, a little over two hours later, he pulled up to my apartment in Gainesville and as this was the pre-cell phone era, honked the horn to announce his presence. When I came out and headed to the passenger side, Pop laughed, said that he was tired from a long week of work, threw me the keys and soon afterwards, we were on I-75 heading towards the Florida Turnpike for what would turn out to be our last duo “Boys” trip.

Miami is about six hours from Gainesville and after a two hour or so nap, Pop woke up and as we had thousands of times in the past, started talking about politics, history, and sports until we made it to my Nana’s house in the Richmond Heights neighborhood. I started off by telling him that I had recently attended a seminar on campus where the speaker, a white professor who was around his age, suggested that Jim Crow segregation customs in Florida were not as rigid as they were in other parts of the South. During the question and answer session following the professor's lecture, I got into a pretty intense debate with him and clapped back with all that I had been taught by Pop and my mother about their experiences growing up in Miami and Tallahassee, respectively, in the 1950's and 60's.

My father (left), standing behind me and my homeboy and Morehouse College roommate, Richard Alan, after I graduated from UF Law in ‘98.

"Bullshit" was Pop's initial curt reply about the professor’s averments, before reminding me that everything that I had said was 100 percent accurate—and that the professor “didn't know his ass from a hole in the ground!” Pop switched from his profane to profound side by adding that he was not surprised by the professor's flawed remembrances because as he put it, "most white folks my age grew up insulated from, or indifferent to, the disadvantages that Black folks had in public education, health, and job opportunities during segregation."

Indeed…

Charles Hobbs, Sr. made the segregated Miami Times “All City” football team from his sophomore through senior years at George Washington Carver High School in Coconut Grove. Per Jim Crow customs, his team couldn't line up against all white squads at Miami Senior High or Coral Gables High School…

I've thought of our conversation that day many times through the years, especially after Donald Trump announced his candidacy for president in 2015 and declared his intention to Make America Great Again, a slogan that made me and others of my ilk ponder privately and aloud, "when was America great for Black people and other minority demographics?"

Such is why I was not surprised last month when Florida Gov. Ron Desantis heralded the creation of the "Alligator Alcatraz" immigrant detention facility down near the Big Cypress Swamp. I was even less surprised when President Donald Trump toured the facility the day of its opening and laughed it up with Desantis, his former disciple turned presidential primary foe, as their right wing media supporters and MAGA fans joked about the possibility that the darker skinned detainees would be "eaten by alligators" should they try to escape.

Cruel white supremacy now…

While the alligators eating immigrants trope has caused many writers and people with common decency to shake their heads in disgust over the past few weeks, the part of me that remembers those Jim Crow history lessons from my parents, and read myriad books and articles about the same in the years since, understood that white supremacists in Florida have always had a sick fetish about Black people being eaten alive by alligators. For decades, you couldn't drive to a gas station or convenience store in the state without seeing postcards of Black babies being used as "gator bait," which is one reason that five years ago, the University of Florida finally banned the popular "Gator Bait" chant and song at its home football games in "The Swamp" at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium in Gainesville.

Cruel white supremacy back then…

But five years seem like a lifetime ago now, as the MAGA mob, only 31 percent of the American voting public last Fall, is on top all because another third of the voting public didn't join the third of us who voted for Kamala Harris after realizing the existential threat that a second Trump administration would pose on civil rights, economics, world trade and defense.

Racist right wing media influencer Laura Loomer, author of the cruel Tweet above in celebration of Alligator Alcatraz, is a dear friend and frequent guest of President Donald Trump's…

More crucially, Trump and his acolytes, whether it's Desantis in Florida, Governors Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Greg Abbott in Arkansas and Texas, or any number of elected officials on federal, state, and local levels, are using traditional and social media as vehicles to vent their cruel agenda.

Now, I get that agenda from MAGA politicos and business elite, as cozying up to Trump gives them leverage to maintain political power and pecuniary profits.

But I don't “get” the rank and file MAGA voters, the ones who are suffering from inflation and food deserts amid soon to be lost insurance benefits and hospital access, who have thrown their support behind a political agenda that provides zero benefits for their families or financial bottom lines.

However, I do get their "why," which is because Trump and his powerful friends have run the same old game that their Confederate ancestors did prior to the Civil War as they convinced hundreds of thousands of poor whites to sign up to defend "the Cause" of slavery—a cause that provided them no personal financial benefits. But indeed, the name of the game, then and now, was the myth of white superiority based upon cruelty towards people who looked, prayed, and loved differently than the European heteronormative model.

Lest we forget...