I’m a white woman. I’m not voting for Trump but I’m also not voting for Kamala because of her defiant insistence on continuing to participate lock-step with Israel in a genocide while dangling our abortion rights above the American people like a cat treat is intolerable. It makes me physically nauseated. And watching her this past weekend at Church in Georgia was performative at best. I’ll admit to having been a fan of the Obamas, but I’m very disappointed that while I’ve done my best to learn and grow past my dedication to voting blue, they seem to have succumbed to the Democratic Party and I feel they’ve lost their voices. Mr. Joseph, thank you for your books and your gift of knowledge.
How embarrassing for Obama to guilt trip potential voters. I’m personally tired of the fear mongering about Trump. Granted, he is a danger to our country. But so is Harris, an empty suit is an apt description, her strings already being pulled by Zionists. I’m voting Jill Stein, the only peace candidate.
Obama used Black males in his ambitious journey to become President. He claimed to sleep in church when he was challenged about his alliance with Reverend Jeremiah Wright. He used the visibility of Black leaders like Reverend Wright to move from an unknown newbie to the voice of the Forgotten. When Obama was called out, he marched to a podium with a dry speech about racism which he did nothing about during eight years.
In fact, Obama used his Black Maleness to declare war on Africa and donned his dark shades on days that he sanctioned assassinations of critics of America like the pimp of the War Machine.
Black people know that the Democratic Party has no love for them. Kamala Harris opposed the end of state murder even as the state of California held hundreds of Black men on Death Row. The judicial system was on the verge of stopping state murder but Kamala Harris was having none of that. Kamala Harris knew innocent Black men were incarcerated but blocked efforts to free them.
Black politicians retreat to the Black Church to abuse and exploit the hospitality of Black people who still remember how Dr. Martin Luther King preached freedom and hope from church pulpits.
These Black politicians that use the warm hearts of Black People to exploit the Black tradition are hand-picked by White America which watches Black People rush to see a face with melanin though they know that they will not get the respect of putting these impostors and mules carrying the drug called ‘ American democracy’ into political office.
The Rape is once again underway. Obama lives in an 8 million dollar home because he was the ‘Black’ male that America needed to perpetuate yet another hoax.
So, it’s no surprise. America handpicks weak Black people with no historical footprint in the Black nation of overcoming chattel slavery to lead. They have neither felt the same whip or walked the same walk. Indeed, they know the privilege of the Black elite whose parents had the opportunity to gain a PhD while Black people in the inner cities struggled with overcrowded schools dominated by white teachers and ragged books leading to poor literacy and high drop out rates.
So, Obama killing African Leaders and living to be a hit man in Black Face is the perfect one to talk down to Black males who will remain oppressed, killed, and jailed with impunity until the Black man rises like a Phoenix from the ashes of genocide to finally say I refuse to not be able to breathe!
OMG TY for writing about this, I was debating with some people on Threads about Obama ( Harris ) singling out Black men & shaming Gen-Z voter. The tone is very entitled considering how lackluster & out of touch Harris’s campaign has been. 👍🏽
Excellent points and yet I cannot in good conscience vote for baby shredders - and both the “viable” candidates are simply that. If Harris committed to end the genocide and killing then hope would blossom.
In fifty fucking years things have only gotten worse in the US. It doesn't matter which team is in charge. They're all owned by their corporate masters. I'm voting 3rd party. Fuck the duopoly 😤
The last couple of months I’ve wanted to get behind the Dems but they’ve done nothing to gain my support. But instead I continue to watch Palestinians die and suffer with no end in site.
I think that sometimes we must step out of our own “bubbles” and view the immediacy with clear intent. Like many, I am very disappointed in the situation we are in as a country, and in the ugliness of the world.. It is excruciating. Each of us works hard at advocating for all that we are passionate about and it is a long, frustrating, and endless journey. We are idealists, always seeking the nirvana society that unfortunately always evades our grasp.
I so enjoy the artistry of Frederick’s craft. He is one of the finest writers I have discovered in my adult life. I enjoy the fact that he stretches the limits of my perspective and encourages me to learn more, feel more, and work harder to be the person I strive to be.
I will make this as concise as I can. I think that we would all be foolish not to acknowledge that this is an imperfect world with imperfect people of all demographics. I am a white woman, a senior citizen, and I have been married for 42 years to a successful tradesman. We came from very different educational and economic backgrounds, but have grown together, each helping the other understand that this world is a complex conundrum of competing perspectives. I have helped him tap deeply into his higher ideals, and he has helped me get down from my ivory tower.
The reality is that we are left with two imperfect choices here. We are being played by both sides, without a doubt, but are tasked with choosing the lesser of two evils, and if we choose to stand away and even vote for an outlier candidate, we have abandoned our future.
My husband told me early on that there are MANY who won’t vote for Kamala because she is a woman. I was aghast and argued profusely with him. He is voting for Kamala, but as a guy who grew up in a blue collar world, he knows the thinking of this demographic. Well it turns out that he is completely right. And many blue collar women won’t vote for a woman either! This is when he took me down from my ivory tower and gave me a healthy dose of reality.
He is not a person of color, but went to a very inner city public school with a highly integrated student body and played football on a very integrated football team in a very integrated city league. in other words, he grew up and went to school with a lower middle class demographic, both white and African American. It is a DEMOGRAPHIC that leans heavily towards misogyny. In other words, a woman would be eliminated from consideration before she opens her mouth. This does not mean that within these ranks there are not those who are wired differently, but there is also a large contingency that no amount of reasoning will move the needle.
So that brings us to today. At this point, in these final days of the most important election of our lifetimes, there is not enough time to win over the hearts and minds of those who solidly live in a world where their opinions work just fine for them. President Obama has the stature to potentially reach this demographic just by waking them up a bit. Trump already has lathered the willing with the poisonous oil of misogyny in every form.
As a woman I find misogyny to be such a tool of evil, and so actively enforced throughout the world, that we should be ASHAMED, of every place it rears its ugly head. That was Obama’s message. He was not talking down to these men. He was doing his best to wake them up from yet another place where another form of discrimination has found a comfortable haven.
We may hate the system, but today we live in it. If we wait for it to meet our expectations, then we will never vote again. But right now we face an evil that spells its intent out in glaring letters. We know what to expect from Trump and the ugliness will be of a form we never thought possible. As my husband has taught me, reality is REAL. We must get down from our ivory towers on Election Day, take a bath in the muddy waters of the system, and then get up the next day and fight again with whatever reality emerges from, what we hope, will be the lesser of two evils.
Kamala tweeted her plan to support black men about two says before this note was published - it goes well beyond shaming. It involves ‘forgivable loans’ of $20k each, protecting their crypto investments, and legalising marijuana. She tweeted analogous bribes for latinos today. I can’t help but think that if Trump had proposed any of that, he would be labelled a racist. A bit like when he said border control would help to protect black jobs. Except that if he were to propose any of the above policies, those making the ‘racist’ claim would perhaps have a point. The Harris campaign is hopelessly out of touch and is getting desperate. She will lose this election because her administration has been an economic and foreign policy catastrophe, and she demonstrates her utter incompetence each time she opens her mouth. The democrats need to rebuild pronto.
spot on! another writer on here, Marion Teniade, just had a similar piece and raised the excellent question of why Democrats aren't trying to shame white women or white men (apart from the obvious racism of it all, she identified some interesting points). bottom line, it's embarrassing for the Democrats to be shaming potential voters instead of just doing better!! feels like a shitty partner who blames me for their behavior!
The amount of respectable folks with large social media platforms that are now moving to this shaming technique is staggering. Advocating for your preferred candidate(s) is one thing, but shaming others for daring to operate based on their morality is not a good look.
Fear and shame rarely make a good strategy… I appreciate how you mentioned that some people have suffered no matter the president (Republican or Democrat). Both parties have failed to offer candidates that prioritize humanity or ethics, at least since my voting years.
Again, brilliantly written. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
I did hear that tone of 'shaming' from Barrack Obama. He goes there sometimes, trying to cajole usually 'young men' in a way that he likely did when parenting; and, I think, talking to his younger self perhaps. I have to think of Rev. Warnock's advice to think of your vote as a sort of a prayer, but choose a meaningful prayer! Do Vote. Do NOT vote 'third party' for president. If you want a third party then start working on it locally from the ground up....eventually there might be a time that this party would be presidential material.
Please Vote.
Both parties are going on an enormous realignment. We know of the Trumpublicans direction and it is dire, violent, selfish and devoid of ideas; and thus available to the highest bidder to use and abuse The People and Our Commons for their own gain . We are looking to a new generation of Democrats with Kamala Harris (taking off from the shoulder's of the Biden Admininstration's apparently 'secret' efforts on a more progressive and pragmatic economy that is directing us in a better direction for rebuilding the middle class; and building a domestic manufacturing bulwark necessary for national security). I think it was John Lewis who was nearly killed, along with many others, in defending democracy and our right to vote: with your vote, 'take the bus to the station" heading most in the direction that you wish to go . In this case, the directions are STARK.
A Trump Administration wishes to isolate our country from the world, except the globe trotting billionaires and mega millionaires with their greedy fingers extracting every bit of wealth from our commons and our communities. A Trump Administration espouses violence against those who protest for human and civil rights. A Trump Administration's direction is towards the negation of those communities he deems 'losers'. A Trump Administration cannot imagine how immigrants have always built and improved our country over time, and would rather disrupt, damage and perhaps destroy our communities by mass deportation.
Third Party and Not Voting is taking a bus to no where right now. We cannot escape to no where.
The Democratic Party is, I hear, the oldest and longest persisting political party in the world system. It is so far from perfect. As are we all and thus there is no perfect. But let's see where it might go under the leadership of NOT old white men. Give it some time, some hope, some support even. And yes, demand the hell out of the Harris Administration, your representatives in Congress and the Senate, your local/state representatives. Believe me, I live in DC and do not have that representation. It matters! . Elections are just setting up the race, they are not the race itself.
It is excruciating in this modern age to see day in and day out the meaning of 'foreign policy' and the horrific effects of our military industrial complex. We are all complicit and yet we feel powerless when we see the underbelly of "our security". We all benefit by living in the world's richest country in human history, even if we ourselves are not rich. We have not always been so able to see in real time how blind is the hand that controls the bombs, the drones, life and death for "Them". The gordian knot of how nations benefit or suffer due to historical anomalies, global trends, and the wishes of the richest nations will not be solved in one election nor in a hundred. We really need to evolve as humans if we are to survive as any sort of human family.
You sound like RNC/Musk or other Putin funded Jill Stein nonsense. Or is this sour grapes for the Hamas leader fished out of his tunnel and now dying by the sword? Be honest--that's your orientation. No one is "shaming" anyone, just saying there's no excuse for the willful blindness to the of what Trump and Vance are and represent and will do. Right there, in front of your face. Here's reality: It's not shaming to tell a flat earther "stop it." Whether the moving item is misinformation, or being trifling, sexist, ignorant...or some sort of let's use dog dewormer for COVID thing, as COVID was unleashed upon Big Mama and Uncle Pete by the corporations. You deal in reinforcing fatalism, and using it a recruiting tool to a dead end, that will only empower Trump et al. And he will hurt the very people you say are being "shamed" marginalized. I had the good fortune to attend various huge HBCU Homecomings these past two weeks and frankly, to put it kindly to you, the kids and alums seemed to be a teeny weeny bit more enthusiastic for Harris than you'd wish. LOL
Freedom of thought and expression are so important. There is a way to advocate and there is a way to reprimand. Let’s get real; no one wants to be criticized for their honest opinion. And “ democracy “ does not survive. Hey, America has a two party system. We can’t talk about the importance of democracy ( hey, they are the Democratic Party) and attack the motives and intelligence of others. Persuasion is not condescension.
I’m a white woman. I’m not voting for Trump but I’m also not voting for Kamala because of her defiant insistence on continuing to participate lock-step with Israel in a genocide while dangling our abortion rights above the American people like a cat treat is intolerable. It makes me physically nauseated. And watching her this past weekend at Church in Georgia was performative at best. I’ll admit to having been a fan of the Obamas, but I’m very disappointed that while I’ve done my best to learn and grow past my dedication to voting blue, they seem to have succumbed to the Democratic Party and I feel they’ve lost their voices. Mr. Joseph, thank you for your books and your gift of knowledge.
I could’ve written this exact statement ^ Well said, comrade.
How embarrassing for Obama to guilt trip potential voters. I’m personally tired of the fear mongering about Trump. Granted, he is a danger to our country. But so is Harris, an empty suit is an apt description, her strings already being pulled by Zionists. I’m voting Jill Stein, the only peace candidate.
Obama used Black males in his ambitious journey to become President. He claimed to sleep in church when he was challenged about his alliance with Reverend Jeremiah Wright. He used the visibility of Black leaders like Reverend Wright to move from an unknown newbie to the voice of the Forgotten. When Obama was called out, he marched to a podium with a dry speech about racism which he did nothing about during eight years.
In fact, Obama used his Black Maleness to declare war on Africa and donned his dark shades on days that he sanctioned assassinations of critics of America like the pimp of the War Machine.
Black people know that the Democratic Party has no love for them. Kamala Harris opposed the end of state murder even as the state of California held hundreds of Black men on Death Row. The judicial system was on the verge of stopping state murder but Kamala Harris was having none of that. Kamala Harris knew innocent Black men were incarcerated but blocked efforts to free them.
Black politicians retreat to the Black Church to abuse and exploit the hospitality of Black people who still remember how Dr. Martin Luther King preached freedom and hope from church pulpits.
These Black politicians that use the warm hearts of Black People to exploit the Black tradition are hand-picked by White America which watches Black People rush to see a face with melanin though they know that they will not get the respect of putting these impostors and mules carrying the drug called ‘ American democracy’ into political office.
The Rape is once again underway. Obama lives in an 8 million dollar home because he was the ‘Black’ male that America needed to perpetuate yet another hoax.
So, it’s no surprise. America handpicks weak Black people with no historical footprint in the Black nation of overcoming chattel slavery to lead. They have neither felt the same whip or walked the same walk. Indeed, they know the privilege of the Black elite whose parents had the opportunity to gain a PhD while Black people in the inner cities struggled with overcrowded schools dominated by white teachers and ragged books leading to poor literacy and high drop out rates.
So, Obama killing African Leaders and living to be a hit man in Black Face is the perfect one to talk down to Black males who will remain oppressed, killed, and jailed with impunity until the Black man rises like a Phoenix from the ashes of genocide to finally say I refuse to not be able to breathe!
Brilliant analysis
OMG TY for writing about this, I was debating with some people on Threads about Obama ( Harris ) singling out Black men & shaming Gen-Z voter. The tone is very entitled considering how lackluster & out of touch Harris’s campaign has been. 👍🏽
Democrats lost me when I realized that they're no different than Republicans. I'm voting third party.
Excellent points and yet I cannot in good conscience vote for baby shredders - and both the “viable” candidates are simply that. If Harris committed to end the genocide and killing then hope would blossom.
In fifty fucking years things have only gotten worse in the US. It doesn't matter which team is in charge. They're all owned by their corporate masters. I'm voting 3rd party. Fuck the duopoly 😤
Thank you for this piece 🙏🏻
The last couple of months I’ve wanted to get behind the Dems but they’ve done nothing to gain my support. But instead I continue to watch Palestinians die and suffer with no end in site.
I think that sometimes we must step out of our own “bubbles” and view the immediacy with clear intent. Like many, I am very disappointed in the situation we are in as a country, and in the ugliness of the world.. It is excruciating. Each of us works hard at advocating for all that we are passionate about and it is a long, frustrating, and endless journey. We are idealists, always seeking the nirvana society that unfortunately always evades our grasp.
I so enjoy the artistry of Frederick’s craft. He is one of the finest writers I have discovered in my adult life. I enjoy the fact that he stretches the limits of my perspective and encourages me to learn more, feel more, and work harder to be the person I strive to be.
I will make this as concise as I can. I think that we would all be foolish not to acknowledge that this is an imperfect world with imperfect people of all demographics. I am a white woman, a senior citizen, and I have been married for 42 years to a successful tradesman. We came from very different educational and economic backgrounds, but have grown together, each helping the other understand that this world is a complex conundrum of competing perspectives. I have helped him tap deeply into his higher ideals, and he has helped me get down from my ivory tower.
The reality is that we are left with two imperfect choices here. We are being played by both sides, without a doubt, but are tasked with choosing the lesser of two evils, and if we choose to stand away and even vote for an outlier candidate, we have abandoned our future.
My husband told me early on that there are MANY who won’t vote for Kamala because she is a woman. I was aghast and argued profusely with him. He is voting for Kamala, but as a guy who grew up in a blue collar world, he knows the thinking of this demographic. Well it turns out that he is completely right. And many blue collar women won’t vote for a woman either! This is when he took me down from my ivory tower and gave me a healthy dose of reality.
He is not a person of color, but went to a very inner city public school with a highly integrated student body and played football on a very integrated football team in a very integrated city league. in other words, he grew up and went to school with a lower middle class demographic, both white and African American. It is a DEMOGRAPHIC that leans heavily towards misogyny. In other words, a woman would be eliminated from consideration before she opens her mouth. This does not mean that within these ranks there are not those who are wired differently, but there is also a large contingency that no amount of reasoning will move the needle.
So that brings us to today. At this point, in these final days of the most important election of our lifetimes, there is not enough time to win over the hearts and minds of those who solidly live in a world where their opinions work just fine for them. President Obama has the stature to potentially reach this demographic just by waking them up a bit. Trump already has lathered the willing with the poisonous oil of misogyny in every form.
As a woman I find misogyny to be such a tool of evil, and so actively enforced throughout the world, that we should be ASHAMED, of every place it rears its ugly head. That was Obama’s message. He was not talking down to these men. He was doing his best to wake them up from yet another place where another form of discrimination has found a comfortable haven.
We may hate the system, but today we live in it. If we wait for it to meet our expectations, then we will never vote again. But right now we face an evil that spells its intent out in glaring letters. We know what to expect from Trump and the ugliness will be of a form we never thought possible. As my husband has taught me, reality is REAL. We must get down from our ivory towers on Election Day, take a bath in the muddy waters of the system, and then get up the next day and fight again with whatever reality emerges from, what we hope, will be the lesser of two evils.
Kamala tweeted her plan to support black men about two says before this note was published - it goes well beyond shaming. It involves ‘forgivable loans’ of $20k each, protecting their crypto investments, and legalising marijuana. She tweeted analogous bribes for latinos today. I can’t help but think that if Trump had proposed any of that, he would be labelled a racist. A bit like when he said border control would help to protect black jobs. Except that if he were to propose any of the above policies, those making the ‘racist’ claim would perhaps have a point. The Harris campaign is hopelessly out of touch and is getting desperate. She will lose this election because her administration has been an economic and foreign policy catastrophe, and she demonstrates her utter incompetence each time she opens her mouth. The democrats need to rebuild pronto.
spot on! another writer on here, Marion Teniade, just had a similar piece and raised the excellent question of why Democrats aren't trying to shame white women or white men (apart from the obvious racism of it all, she identified some interesting points). bottom line, it's embarrassing for the Democrats to be shaming potential voters instead of just doing better!! feels like a shitty partner who blames me for their behavior!
The amount of respectable folks with large social media platforms that are now moving to this shaming technique is staggering. Advocating for your preferred candidate(s) is one thing, but shaming others for daring to operate based on their morality is not a good look.
It’s quite clear that identity politics win elections and that Trump plays identity politics better than anyone.
Fear and shame rarely make a good strategy… I appreciate how you mentioned that some people have suffered no matter the president (Republican or Democrat). Both parties have failed to offer candidates that prioritize humanity or ethics, at least since my voting years.
Again, brilliantly written. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
I did hear that tone of 'shaming' from Barrack Obama. He goes there sometimes, trying to cajole usually 'young men' in a way that he likely did when parenting; and, I think, talking to his younger self perhaps. I have to think of Rev. Warnock's advice to think of your vote as a sort of a prayer, but choose a meaningful prayer! Do Vote. Do NOT vote 'third party' for president. If you want a third party then start working on it locally from the ground up....eventually there might be a time that this party would be presidential material.
Please Vote.
Both parties are going on an enormous realignment. We know of the Trumpublicans direction and it is dire, violent, selfish and devoid of ideas; and thus available to the highest bidder to use and abuse The People and Our Commons for their own gain . We are looking to a new generation of Democrats with Kamala Harris (taking off from the shoulder's of the Biden Admininstration's apparently 'secret' efforts on a more progressive and pragmatic economy that is directing us in a better direction for rebuilding the middle class; and building a domestic manufacturing bulwark necessary for national security). I think it was John Lewis who was nearly killed, along with many others, in defending democracy and our right to vote: with your vote, 'take the bus to the station" heading most in the direction that you wish to go . In this case, the directions are STARK.
A Trump Administration wishes to isolate our country from the world, except the globe trotting billionaires and mega millionaires with their greedy fingers extracting every bit of wealth from our commons and our communities. A Trump Administration espouses violence against those who protest for human and civil rights. A Trump Administration's direction is towards the negation of those communities he deems 'losers'. A Trump Administration cannot imagine how immigrants have always built and improved our country over time, and would rather disrupt, damage and perhaps destroy our communities by mass deportation.
Third Party and Not Voting is taking a bus to no where right now. We cannot escape to no where.
The Democratic Party is, I hear, the oldest and longest persisting political party in the world system. It is so far from perfect. As are we all and thus there is no perfect. But let's see where it might go under the leadership of NOT old white men. Give it some time, some hope, some support even. And yes, demand the hell out of the Harris Administration, your representatives in Congress and the Senate, your local/state representatives. Believe me, I live in DC and do not have that representation. It matters! . Elections are just setting up the race, they are not the race itself.
It is excruciating in this modern age to see day in and day out the meaning of 'foreign policy' and the horrific effects of our military industrial complex. We are all complicit and yet we feel powerless when we see the underbelly of "our security". We all benefit by living in the world's richest country in human history, even if we ourselves are not rich. We have not always been so able to see in real time how blind is the hand that controls the bombs, the drones, life and death for "Them". The gordian knot of how nations benefit or suffer due to historical anomalies, global trends, and the wishes of the richest nations will not be solved in one election nor in a hundred. We really need to evolve as humans if we are to survive as any sort of human family.
You sound like RNC/Musk or other Putin funded Jill Stein nonsense. Or is this sour grapes for the Hamas leader fished out of his tunnel and now dying by the sword? Be honest--that's your orientation. No one is "shaming" anyone, just saying there's no excuse for the willful blindness to the of what Trump and Vance are and represent and will do. Right there, in front of your face. Here's reality: It's not shaming to tell a flat earther "stop it." Whether the moving item is misinformation, or being trifling, sexist, ignorant...or some sort of let's use dog dewormer for COVID thing, as COVID was unleashed upon Big Mama and Uncle Pete by the corporations. You deal in reinforcing fatalism, and using it a recruiting tool to a dead end, that will only empower Trump et al. And he will hurt the very people you say are being "shamed" marginalized. I had the good fortune to attend various huge HBCU Homecomings these past two weeks and frankly, to put it kindly to you, the kids and alums seemed to be a teeny weeny bit more enthusiastic for Harris than you'd wish. LOL
Freedom of thought and expression are so important. There is a way to advocate and there is a way to reprimand. Let’s get real; no one wants to be criticized for their honest opinion. And “ democracy “ does not survive. Hey, America has a two party system. We can’t talk about the importance of democracy ( hey, they are the Democratic Party) and attack the motives and intelligence of others. Persuasion is not condescension.