Dear African-Americans by Eve Thompson
Eve Thompson grew up in New Jersey, attended Princeton University and Georgetown Law School and moved overseas at the age of 34 starting in South Africa, then Jordan, Brazil and then back to Africa in Guinea Bissau and Nigeria. She currently resides in Goma, the Democratic Republic of Congo. She is a lawyer but who for the last 25 years, has managed complex human rights, democracy development and peace-building projects. She currently serves as Head of Mission of a project funded by USAID called Solutions for Peace and Recovery in Eastern Congo. 

Today, we will inaugurate Donald Trump as the 45th President of the US. I am an African-American woman in my 50s who has lived overseas (mostly in Africa) for the better part of the last 23 years. We suffered a great disappointment in November with the election of arguably the most unqualified person ever to run for our country’s highest office. Of course, his non-traditional route to the presidency and status as a Washington outsider is much less of a concern than the raw bitterness, rancor and divisiveness that was the signature of his campaign. In its wake, is a country deeply divided, deeply insular and in my humble opinion, woefully headed for deep decline under a Trump presidency if his campaign is anything to go by. 

The motley group of Trump supporters who fervently celebrated the notion of “taking their country back” and the prospect of “making America great again” will no doubt be left reeling when the “Mack Truck” of reality hits them in the months or years to come. Already, it may be dawning on them that manna from heaven has already been intercepted by Andy Puzder, Trump’s new labor czar, who opposes minimum wage increases for working stiffs whether or not they voted for Mr. Trump. 

As someone who has lived outside of the US now for most of my adult life, I believe that I bring a perspective that can help young African-Americans live more easily under a Trump presidency and dare I say -- see it as an opportunity. 

One of our limiting qualities as African-Americans is our historic status as victims who arrived here not on our own volition. However, that status has moved from the realm of objective reality to the more mutable but persistently entrenched sphere of self-perception. What Trump supporters who have self-defined themselves as victims for the last 8 years do for us is hold a mirror up and reflect back the depth to which a victim pathology can blind us and deny us the perspective that we need, to see greater options and make more “right” choices. 

Obama’s victory, in 2008, rocked the very foundation of white entitlement, privilege and their hitherto unchallenged notion that they own America. Their zero-sum reality left them immediately feeling that America’s promise had been hijacked by an enemy bent on freezing them out. The irony is that those who felt the most like this were those poor uneducated whites who never owned America to begin with but clung desperately to the idea that the color of their skin could at least entitle them to a seat towards the front of the bus. The majority of them failed to appreciate that they have always been victims of a system skewed in favor of the wealthy and powerful - like Mr. Puzder, the fast-food king who is just as dedicated to rendering poor whites less healthy, less wealthy and less wise as much as poor blacks. 

This last 8 years of living “as victims” and their resulting behavior as self-perceived victims offer the starkest example of the idea that when you have a fiercely held sense of yourself as a victim, you become blind to many truths as well as opportunities. In her brilliant analysis entitled “I know why poor whites chant Trump, Trump, Trump,” Jonna Ivin, explains the history of the dynamic in which wealthy and powerful whites have historically manipulated poor whites to serve their own interests and have successfully misled them to believe that their interests were best served if they aligned racially across class instead of on a class basis across race. http://www.stirjournal.com/2016/04/01/i-know-why-poor-whites-chant-trump-trump-trump/

In the last 8 years, the poor white “complex” dominated by the need to feel superior to other race groups has been further complicated by their sense of victimization by a nation that, in their view, has been “overrun” by non-whites and that perspective has further blinded them to any benefit to be derived from aligning themselves according to the natural affinity they might have with poor classes who are not white. They are in the same health care, education and unstable employment “boat” as the poor of other races. But they don’t see it that way. 

If that is the nature of their victim blindness, what is the nature of ours and what will enable us to overcome our victim blindness and behold the truths that have always been evident and the opportunities that are ours for the taking? Part of our blindness is linked to American myopia in general. A century of indoctrination has entrenched a primordial attachment to ourselves as the unassailable frontrunners in the evolution of western civilization. Thus, every American buys into the idea that “We are Number One!” - the notion that underpins that pulsating chant during international sports competitions - U.S.A., U.S.A.!! The idea that “we are number one” is also what fixes our focus inward with scant reference to the world beyond our borders and what equally prevents us from gaining the much needed perspective that an expanded world view offers. 

For whites, the outside world is to be kept out and for blacks, the outside world is just part of a larger system that treats us unfairly. For both groups, the world is still monochrome, a world atavistically characterized by black-white division without regard to dynamics involving or affecting other racial groups. 

During my initial years living in Africa, I worked in an office in Johannesburg, South Africa where one day, the black South African receptionist asked me if I would donate 5 rands to a charity for which she was soliciting. I asked her to first share with me the literature associated with the charity, which she brought in the next day. She handed me a tattered pamphlet which featured several children on its cover. The very curious thing about these children is that they were all white in a country where the vast majority of whites had no need for a handout and where the vast majority of blacks did. I thus questioned her about the inappropriateness of a South African charity for children representing itself with the faces of children who were exclusively white. Her response then, forever altered my ideas about race relations in America. “You Americans! All you talk about is black, white, black white, black white!” Not only was I taken aback by the response, but by the person from whom the remark came - a black South African who had lived under the brutal apartheid system of strict separation and unequal treatment of the black and white races. Yet, it was she who was exhorting me to essentially “get over it!” That exchange led me to ponder how much we as African-Americans and Americans, in general, must sound like a broken record. 

We have been stuck in a reality for which we have been persistently unable to muster the tools necessary to co-create a new one underpinned by a more appropriate narrative that is bold and empowering for everyone concerned. Our persistent inability to transform the discourse and orientation about race in America increasingly poses a threat to our standing in the world. In fact, it is a distraction for Americans, in general, and for African-Americans, in particular. So how can we as African-Americans get beyond the race and victim distraction and seize the opportunities that this distraction has caused us to miss? 

Recently, I was back in the US for work. Whenever I am back in the US, I am obliged to get a new US cell number. Shortly after my arrival in the US, I obtained a sim card at one of the cell network stores in the DC metro area. The salesperson who waited on me was a young African-American male named RaShawn (name changed). He was pleasant and intrigued by the fact that I live in Africa. But then, over the course of the conversation, the ignorance that he revealed about his knowledge of geography, history as well as the English language was horrifying. I reflected on this exchange in relation to this notion of America as the “alleged” number one world power. As a former runner, I am keenly aware that the view from the front is myopic and you have very limited awareness as a frontrunner when others are gaining on you. RaShawn therefore, has no idea that there are millions of young men his age around the world, including in Africa, who are far more competitive and prepared to succeed in our globalized world than he is. I know, because I have met many of them and this is perhaps what has led me to broadly share this reflection. I am far less concerned by the prospect of RaShawn suffering from racial profiling as he drives on a highway in Maryland than by the extremely limited opportunities to advance and prosper in American society as well as globally, as a result of his profoundly underdeveloped intellectual, skill and knowledge capacity. 

We want Black Lives​ to matter to white people and police departments. On that, African-Americans have been exceptionally vocal! But what about our Black Minds​. Don’t they matter too? And do they specifically matter to us? The notion that they don’t is historic and reveals a pattern that dates back to the days when I was growing up in a black neighborhood and attended a predominantly black grammar school where kids who applied themselves academically were ridiculed. By the time I got to law school, black students chose mall trips over study groups and chided our Asian classmates for organizing an exam review immediately after an exam. 

The election of Donald Trump highlighted the US population’s overall collective intellectual decline. Reality television and mindless popular culture have taken their toll. Far from being insulated from this phenomenon, African-Americans may well be leading the way over the precipice because of our focus on ourselves as victims of others rather than victims of our own neglect. The fact that so many Americans of all races have also neglected their self development and/or have left that task to a broken down public education system is the opportunity revealed by Trump’s election that we should not overlook. However, to take advantage of this opportunity, it is time to shift our focus. 

Protesting all that Trump and his ilk represent as well as the potential for exacerbated victimization of African-Americans is a predictable, knee-jerk response that reinforces the broken record lamented by my South African receptionist. Instead, let us learn from the mistakes of the past which include our failure to emphasize supplemental education to run in parallel with our fight for civil rights and integration. Let us define ourselves by educational and intellectual achievement. It is thus time for a mass movement of self-education and self-improvement in the African-American community. I have directed this essay towards audiences of college newspapers as I believe that the leadership of this movement should be assumed by students and professors in college communities across the country. Now is the time to reach out beyond college walls into our communities with the intention of promoting intellectual rigor, knowledge acquisition and global understanding to all members of African-American communities, but, especially youth who are not being adequately served by the standard education system. 

And now for my own contribution from my perch in Goma in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). We must further recognize that our destiny as African-Americans is inextricably linked to Africa’s. If Africa is seen as conflict-ridden and backwards, for anyone of African descent, it will continue to be a challenge to earn the world’s respect. So I take this opportunity to offer my assistance to all African-American youth who wish to engage beyond US borders, especially in our efforts to render the African continent and by extension, ourselves, worthy of the world’s respect. I offer this assistance in two respects. First, through my blog, healthesource.blogspot.com, I will post various African challenges for which I invite college students, professors and other readers to apply their minds to develop and propose solutions which I will post and which can ultimately translate into tangible initiatives. Secondly, I invite all those interested to send expressions of interest in coming to DRC to contribute to developing young minds on the African side of the Atlantic and I will facilitate your placement with a worthwhile educational institution. You can write to me at healoursource@gmail.com . In this way, I am taking the Trump challenge - let us KEEP our country great by doing our part to develop SUPER YOUTH in our communities and in Africa! Together, we can heal the source of our origins and in so doing, heal ourselves!!