My Closing Argument to Black America… and to Anyone else Who is Listening
By Robert A. Sanders
I support former Vice President Joe Biden and his running mate U.S. Senator Kamala Harris for President and Vice President of the United States of America in the November 2020 election. I believe that Donald J. Trump is the walking, talking definition of Un-American values. I think he and is unfit to be POTUS. My opinion is not based on my Black skin (although it certainly helps), but it is instead rooted in over 40 years supporting the Rule of Law in America and around the globe in a military uniform. Of course, it would be a mistake to say my Blackness does not give me a perspective that many of my non-melanin-infused friends and colleagues cannot fully share or reflect. I live the so-called “race card,” a card connoting instant 3/5thness and an American life without white privilege. If dealt the “card,” you may not like it, but it is a fact from the Preamble’s unfulfilled promise that “All men are created equal.” It did not apply before the Russians helped elect President Trump and may not after, but if it has any chance of being true in the next four-years, Joe Biden must be our President. The race card was at play from the beginning of the republic through the U.S. Constitution’s 3/5 Clause and that “Peculiar Institution”, into Redlined neighborhoods, and Brown versus The Board of Education. You can see it in the murders and unjust aftermaths of Emmitt Till, Trevon Martin, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd; Red Summer 1919; Elaine, AK; Tulsa, OK, and BLM Summer 2020. As such, I will, hell; I must shout BLM from the rooftops, it is neither racist nor Marxist/communist, it is American as Apple Pie! Thirty plus years in a Navy uniform made somethings crystal clear,” I will defend the Constitution against All Enemies Foreign and Domestic”; this includes non-Taxpaying, military deferred, “Putin Puppets” and his family associates. Honestly, I am tired of people running from the racist truth of America and its history. I love my country and recognize its flaws, served to defend my country and ALL its people, but I know American justice and some American citizens do not feel the same way about me BECAUSE of the color of my skin. This conversation is long overdue and getting rid of all the national security threat that Donald J. Trump represents, including his “fine people on both sides” (not), militia order to “Stand back and Stand by,” and ignorance and Unpresidential lack of empathy he as shown regarding the nonjudicial killing of Black and Brown Americans is an essential requirement going forward.
My grandchildren will be the 8th generation on these shores, the first three generations were Enslaved Africans in North Carolina; members of the next four generations serviced in war and peace as members of the American military. The America population is changing, and some white people are scared. Some because they think what their forefathers did to my forefathers (and mothers) will be paid back by me and mine, some because they genuinely believe in white supremacy (Trump, Proud Boys, KKK, et al.), and some, the vast majority, are just ordinary folks trying to make their status quo work for them and their kids during Trump’s pandemic nightmare. Ask yourself if Trump’s lies, actions, and vision on COVID-19, 206,000 unnecessary deaths; Law and Order, immigration, Executive Orders, the environment, stupid/money-wasting border walls, Black American Human Rights protests, federal police tactics in Portland and D.C., and all the rest of his inept actions are the answer? Is he providing an answer of, for, and by the People of America, or just doing what benefits Donald J. Trump? We need Biden-Harris now!
“Joe Biden is, above all, a good man with a strong sense of right and wrong. He is guided by the principles that have long made America great: democracy is a hard-won right we must defend and support at home and abroad; America’s power and influence stem as much from her moral authority as it does from her economic and military power; America’s free press is invaluable, not an enemy of the people; those who sacrifice or give their lives in service of our nation deserve our respect and eternal gratitude, and America’s citizens benefit most when the United States engages with the world. Joe Biden will always put the nation’s needs before his own… Joe Biden has the character, principles, wisdom, and leadership necessary to address a world on fire. That is why Joe Biden must be the next President of the United States.” I said this in a letter along with 488 other National Security Leaders for Biden last week.
