A couple godly friends repeated to me President Donald Trump’s assertion that he has done more for the Black community than any president since Abraham Lincoln. These friends are white, and I know they sincerely believe this statement, which Trump made again in last week’s debate.
So how does one reconcile this with the fact that Black people are streaming to the polls in record numbers to vote overwhelmingly against Trump? Why are they lining up for as long as eight hours in a pandemic that disproportionately affects them to cast votes all over the country?
Are they ungrateful? Are they blindly loyal to the Democratic Party? Have they been brainwashed by the media? Do they think Joe Biden is such an awesome candidate that they can’t miss this opportunity to vote for him?
And why are most of your Black Christian friends voting against Trump? What do they see that white Christians don’t see?
I’m going to try to explain this, channeling the many conversations I have had with Black Christians in recent weeks. If you have close relationships with Black Christians, you can certainly ask them yourself. But if you don’t for whatever reason, here is one white person’s elementary attempt to answer why.
1. Trump is racist. Not the caricature of racist—some rural white guy who flings the n-word and drives in a muddy pickup truck emblazoned with the Confederate flag—but the quintessential modern-day racist. This requires definition. The modern-day racist uses code words to convey his prejudice. Here are a few code words used by Trump, and their readily understood meanings:
“I saved your damn neighborhood” means I kept the Black people out.
“Law and order” means protecting white-owned property above Black lives, in a country that has a long history of inequitable and unjustifiably violent law enforcement against Black people.
“Send her back” and other such statements hurled at elected people of color means you don’t have a right to be here unless you assimilate to white norms.
Trump’s statement that only undocumented immigrants “with the lowest IQ” return for their court hearings means that immigrants from poor countries are stupid and unworthy.
“We’re protecting our freedom” means I will assert my personal rights, regardless of whom it affects, in a country where right has always meant white. That means I’ll refuse to wear a mask, because my freedom is more important than your health, even if you are in a population (Blacks, Hispanics) hit hard by COVID-19.
I think my husband put it best: Donald Trump is the mirror of white America.
He isn’t much worse in his racist attitudes than the average white person of his generation; he’s just in a position where his words and actions are grossly magnified and impact hundreds of millions of people. He epitomizes many of the worst values of white America: clinging to power and control as though it’s our right; putting wealth above lives; refusing to listen to people who aren’t on our side; and turning a blind eye to the vulnerable if they aren’t part of our privileged lives.
2. Trump is governing for the interests of white people. And, like a lot of white people—including many evangelical church leaders—he thinks he knows what Black people need better than Black people themselves.
Trump, for example, points out that the Black unemployment rate is the lowest it’s been in decades. And let’s not take away from his accomplishments—our economy would have been hit harder if it weren’t strong before the outbreak of COVID-19. But jobs and money are just part of the problem for Black Americans.
While Trump drops a few crumbs—an inordinately long prison sentence commuted here, funding for historically Black colleges provided there—his loyalties were laid bare after the killing of George Floyd. Trump threw fuel on the fire of street protests, stoking even deeper racial division. This came after more than four years of public and private statements disparaging people of color, immigrants, the disabled, women, and other vulnerable groups at the same time white evangelicals embraced him as the tough guy they needed to set things right.
That’s why Black Americans aren’t rejoicing over crumbs from a president who insults their dignity and humanity on a near-daily basis. That’s why they will do anything—including voting for a lackluster, abortion-rights candidate like Joe Biden—to get out from under the oppression of a political leader who they believe would sell them out in a second if his white base felt threatened.
I don’t have the time or space to detail the many ways in which Black Americans have been treated unjustly, unfairly, and as less than human in this country. If you care about your Black brothers and sisters in Christ, you will do this research on your own. The information has never been easier to access. One place to start is by looking up the difference between interpersonal, institutional, and internalized racism.
3. Trump played down COVID-19 while Black and Hispanic people died and were hospitalized in disproportionate numbers.
Some of my white evangelical friends have followed his lead and continue to make light of the pandemic. I’ve noticed something interesting: Every single one of my friends and family members who works in a medical profession, regardless of their political loyalties, wears a mask in public settings and takes the pandemic very seriously. And my handful of friends who continue to squawk online about how COVID-19 is basically a hoax possess not a lick of medical training.
I will end with a word for the wise. Yes—it is a prophetic word.
I believe in my spirit that God has heard the cries of African-Americans, and that this is his season for justice. Four hundred years of slavery, dehumanization, murder, and injustice is enough.
A greater percentage of African-Americans identify as Bible-believing Christians than white Americans. They are heirs of the covenant and dearly beloved of God. They have been crying out through the voices of their own prophets, whose anguished words white people have marginalized, discounted, and explained away. White evangelical Christians, in particular, have a long, shameful history of pretending to care about their Black brothers and sisters’ concerns and doing nothing.
Now is God’s time to answer their cries. Does your church hear their cries?
