by Dr. John E. Warren,
Publisher of the San Diego Voice and Viewpoint Newspaper
Now that the election is over, a number of people are experiencing high levels of uncertainty. We should not think that life as we know it has ended. This is a defeatist attitude. What we should remember, especially as Black people, is that if we survived slavery and past Republican presidents, we can survive four years of Donald Trump. What we must do is reset our thinking as to what is important and what we must do as a collective people going forward.
Our first order of business during this time must be a return to prayer rather than party politics. We must remember that it was collective prayer by those who came before us that brought us this far. We must learn to act collectively ‘in spite of’ and not ‘because of’ the obstacles in front of us. While this is easier said than done, each of us must start at our own personal level of interaction with those around us, many of whom we may not like.
Next, we must adopt an attitude of “no permanent friends, no permanent enemies, just permanent interests.” This means that we must re-educate ourselves to how the government works. We have two years to prepare to take back the House of Representatives which the Republican Party has won by a very small number of seats, perhaps less than five.
While we are looking at retaking national parts of government in terms of what’s in our own best interests, we must not ignore local and state issues that will be influenced by the Trump administration. History has taught us that local attitudes are influenced by national attitudes and the national attitudes have shifted to the extreme right based on Trump’s election.
This is not a time for fear, but a time for planning and faith in the fact that we can win even under adverse circumstances.
We must restart our local discussion groups. The Black Press, our most trusted messenger, should play a key role in providing such forums but in conjunction with other organizations and groups in our communities.
What do you think?
