Text by A.H. Scott, Copyright 2022
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“The Words of Wait”
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“African American voters are voting in just as high a percentage as Americans.” – Senator Mitch McConnell, January 19th, 2022[A]
Coming from a virginal ingénue in the topsy-turvy world of politics, this quote could be seen or just brushed off as a mistaken term of phrase. Yet, from this well-aged character in the political arena saying what he said and then trying to walk it back as some sort of slip of the tongue; that doesn’t pass the logic test.
Former (and salivating for a future return to power as Majority Leader) Minority Leader of the United States Senate, Kentucky Republican Mitch McConnell is a man who uses his words judiciously. When a gaggle of reporters ask questions of him during his ventures throughout the corridors of the senate office building, he sometimes answers and sometimes he ignores them. So, when he speaks, it is either feather or anvil.
Words have weight; but, actions have heft.
More put it more succinctly ‘wait’ becomes an albatross in and of itself.
In the tonality of a voice or peppering of a phrase, it always seems that any being that is not a straight-white male in these United States are always on the scale of having to wait.
A prime word that fits the intent is ‘wait’, as beneath the gossamer umbrella are the underlying verbalizations that are threaded throughout the historical fabric of this land called America.
Wait for your rights, if we allow you to have them. Wait for the crumbs to be brushed off the silver platter that have been discarded by those who are many a decade or mile ahead of the rest of the inhabitants of this country.
Another word is ‘given’; as when it comes to the right to vote, the right to marry, the right to privacy handed down from a court which is supposed to be supreme.
Right to vote, right to marry, right to privacy, right to personal autonomy…
Of course, the sense of ‘otherness’ never vanishes to the ones who are tarred and tainted with the vileness of being considered less than. They remain eternal outsiders who are void of the celestial grace which is anointed to an insider. Centuries of existence upon these shores, these inhabitants are held at arm’s length in the brotherhood of the American dream; or as some may see it as the American scheme.
It is almost as if African American citizens of the United States of America are relegated to the minus column of being whole members of this society.
And, for the senior Senator from Kentucky to have his feelings hurt by the backlash over what he decided and chose to say; my response to him is for him to stop clutching his pearls in fake outrage and make an honest attempt at cleaning up his words.
Yet, he won’t. And, the reason why is because he is a demographic darling.
I’ve always wondered how birthright in this country is undoubted for a diminishing swath of citizenry and the leftovers of us have to constantly and consistently march, crawl, and knock on the courthouse doors for just a pat on the head and some sort of legal cover to obtain a not-so-permanent reinforcement of our birthright.
Is it worth the fight? Yes, it is. But, damn, sometimes to just rest on a laurel of knowing you are equal by your birthright as a citizen of the United States of America without needing the vigilance of hoping, wishing and praying that the courthouse and legislature will do the right thing would be the sweetest ray of sunshine to behold.
Through the lens of history the focus can be widened or narrowed, depending upon a person’s desired view. This can be said about how words are used in commission or omission of relaying a message.
Thus, when a powerful political player in the Senate does something as jarring as to verbally scalpel a specific group of Americans from other Americans, that’s when the lens’ view is stifled by castigation. But, what takes the criticism of what Senator McConnell originally said to another level is when he a few days later in his own words feels ‘insulted’ by anyone daring to call him out over the obvious side-swipe.
Otherness is how African-American citizens have always been treated, whether overtly or covertly by their fellow Americans. It’s not some kind of eureka or abracadabra moment of what was said, but more aptly who and when it was said.
January 19th, 2022 was the date when the United States Senate blocked a vote on allowing debate on a rules change to be made in furtherance for the filibuster to be adapted for the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act Bill to be debated. So, when the sly Senator from Kentucky says what he says with that snide smirk upon his face about African-Americans voting as much as Americans; then I guess the bluegrass thoroughbred has left the barn of credulity on that topic.
After 400 years plus, African-Americans are on that constant tightrope of being disregarded, discarded, despised, derided, damaged, and disrespected. It’s nothing new to hear the cranking up of a gramophone with that old chestnut screeching on and on about whom the ‘real’ Americans are. That aspect of distinguishing what is authentic and that which is not comes from a track of supremacy.
Yet, in this year of 2022, seditious supremacy is being met head-on with defenders of democracy aboard the railroad of righteousness. A key defender for the cause of locomotion in progress is Majority Whip James Clyburn.
Not backing off, not backing away and telling it exactly how it is, James Clyburn is not a man who soft-shoes it to make those of intolerance and opposition feel comfortable or complacent in thinking the agenda of the Biden Administration is defeated. Oh yes, those of us who were wanting Build Back Better to get through the Senate and placed onto President Biden’s desk for signature before his first year anniversary of his presidency are really bummed about it.
So, the bill has been stalled and some say it is on the verge of being dead on arrival. I see the bill as being on life support and just in need of a revival. In the House, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, and Majority Whip James Clyburn are in the process of reconfiguring portions of Build Back Better, with the most popular parts of the proposed bill in focus.
Will it be perfect? Will it be easy? Of course it won’t. Ya’ can’t forget this is Washington and things work at a snail’s pace. But, even a snail does make it to their destination – sooner or later.
House Majority Whip Clyburn laid out the vision and agenda of the Biden Administration that he is shepherding [B] through the Congress. Here are the three aspects, two of which have already been signed into law:
*signed into law by President Biden*
March 2021 – American Rescue Plan (ARP)
Vaccines, testing, tracing, Personal Protective Equipment
Expansion of the Child Tax Credit
American Rescue Plan Individual Checks
Housing Assistance
Nutrition Assistance
*signed into law by President Biden*
November 15, 2021 – Bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (BIF)
Highway and Bridge Repair
Water and Wastewater Improvement
Public Transportation (Airports, Railroads, Ports)
Electric Vehicle Charging Network
Flood and Storm Damage Mitigation
High-Speed Broadband
*date of passage to be determined*
Build Back Better (BBB)
Expanded Medicaid
Affordable Housing
Clean Energy and Climate Change and Weatherization
Minority-Serving Higher Education Institutions
“My faith teaches that we will be judged by our deeds not our words. I am proud of these substantive deeds President Biden and this Democratic Congress are getting accomplished for the American people. There is clear evidence that more needs to be done but I have faith that this President and this Congress are not done yet.” – House Majority Whip, James Clyburn (D – South Carolina)
Mr. Clyburn’s gravitas is his aura. It is not because of the position he holds as third-ranking House Democrat or being the highest ranking African-American legislator. Oh, no, he is not a man who has memorized a theory or some ivory towered piece of writing to bathe him in a false illumination of wisdom.
The long path to that which is just is not a leisurely jog or frivolous sprint, as the clarion for those inspired to take the course of the marathon is taken up.
James Clyburn is not only a man who knows history, but, he is a teacher and living embodiment of it. A native of Sumter, South Carolina that was born in 1940, he is not a secondhand witness of history; but, an eyewitness giving his testimony on how far this country has come and how far it needs to go to live up to the proclaimed values chiseled in marble and penned in calligraphic ink.
With his father being a minister and his mother being a beautician, James Enos Clyburn absorbed the antagonistic atmosphere of the South in his early years. At age 12, he ran and won the presidency of the youth chapter of the local NAACP[C] in Sumter. On the move and on the rise in various elements of the protest nomenclature as he went through High School, there were the sit-ins and marches across the state. A student at South Carolina State College in Orangeburg, James graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in history. It would be years later, when he would become a teacher at C. A. Brown High School in Charleston, where he taught history.
James Clyburn was one of the founding members of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, known more generally as SNCC (pronounced as snick). This organization consisted of college students and activists focused on breaking the back of the across the board disenfranchisement, segregation, and just plain-out racist terror leveled upon the black citizenry.
Members of SNCC were on a mission to change the insidious Jim Crow codes in the South with boycotts and sit-ins at restaurants, retails stores, movie theatres and various locales of public amenities that were segregated and for whites-only.
Taking a page from the tactics of other activists in Greensboro, North Carolina, James organized the first sit-ins during February 1960. It was during the arrests of several college students, including Clyburn, that he was blessed with the milk of human kindness. Or, more specifically a hamburger[D] shared with a fellow student from a small town named Moncks Corner, South Carolina. Not only did James share a simple meal that day, but he shared the next 58 years of his life with the lovely lady of generous heart who became his wife, Emily.
By the middle of the 1960’s, James and Emily and their three young daughters had moved to Charleston, where both pursued their passion. He became a history teacher at C. A. Brown High School and she was a school librarian.
In 1971, South Carolina Governor John C. West[E] appointed Clyburn as his advisor, making him the first black person to advise a governor of that state. After that original appointment as advisor to West, the governor tapped him to be South Carolina’s Human Affairs Commissioner. It was a position Clyburn held until 1992, when he stepped down to run for Congress.
As a part of the Democratic leadership in the House of Representatives, James Clyburn has stood tall with tenacity, skill, and the ability to bring consensus within his caucus with a calm and steady hand.
When House Majority Whip Clyburn puts his weight of words or actions behind something or someone, it does matter.
2020’s February 29th South Carolina Primary was the setting and date for Joe Biden’s electoral revival, as a full-throated endorsement from Representative James Clyburn paved the way for a resurgence of the seemingly lackluster campaign of the then former vice-President of the United States of America.
The then candidate, Democrat Joseph R. Biden came out of South Carolina, not just a victor of that primary; but, a man with the wind at his back to sail through 14 Super Tuesday Democratic Primary contests throughout the Southern states of America. His primary victories came in most part due to the strong support among minority voters, which are the political base of the Democratic Party.
Of course one person cannot take claim for Joe Biden’s success in getting to the White House. Yet, no one will doubt the turnaround[F] of his campaign was propelled forth via a vigorous endorsement from South Carolina’s James Clyburn.
In the final week of January 2022, President Joseph R. Biden is on the verge of making one of his campaign promises from back in those days surrounding the South Carolina primary come to fruition when the retirement announcement of Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer was made in a press conference ceremony in the White House.
James Clyburn’s 2020 endorsement of Joe Biden has borne an unexpected harvest of abundance which will outlast the Biden Administration to a legacy for future’s progress.
In the Democratic Party, black women are the electoral backbone in a voting block of over 90 percent. With a vow that then candidate Biden made during a debate in the 2020 electoral primary cycle, the moment to deliver upon it has arrived.
For the first time in United States history, an African-American woman will be nominated by a President of the United States of America to be an associate justice of the highest court in the land – the Supreme Court. With her confirmation by the United States Senate, she will take her place as a trailblazer for young, black girls for future generations to follow.
Believe you me I am one of those who have had my skepticism of President Biden getting elements of his agenda over the finish line. And, of course, there still is many a mile to go.
Yet, a South Carolinian cradled by the wind of wisdom[G] has given me pause in my way of thinking, as his words can put it far better than I ever could:
“Thomas Paine wrote back in 1776, when the country was trying to give birth to itself, ‘The times have found us.’ I think the times found Joe. People say it wasn’t his time before, but maybe the time wasn’t for him before.” – House Majority Whip, James Clyburn (D – South Carolina)
We need wait no more, as the chime of justice has sounded, for OUR time is NOW!
“The Words of Wait”
By
A.H. Scott
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“The Words of Wait (The Footnotes)
A. “Mitch McConnell Says Black People Vote Just As Much As ‘Americans’” – Courier Journal
https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/local/2022/01/20/mitch-mcconnell-african-americans-vote-much-americans/6590081001/
B. “Clyburn: ‘Build Back Better’ balances Biden’s Three-legged Stool” – New Pittsburgh Courier
Clyburn: ‘Build Back Better’ balances Biden’s three-legged stool
C. “Scholarship Recipients: Congressman James Clyburn” – NAACP (Legal Defense & Education Fund)
https://www.naacpldf.org/about-us/scholarship-recipients/congressman-james-clyburn/
D. “A Civil Rights Love Story: The Congressman Who Met His Wife In Jail In 1960” – The Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2020/01/10/clyburn-recounts-1960-meet-cute-with-his-future-wife-jail/
E. “John C. West, Crusading South Carolina Governor, Dies at 81” – The New York Times
F. “Clyburn Ushered Biden to the White House. Now, the SC Democrat Wants His Help In Congress.” – The Post & Courier
https://www.postandcourier.com/politics/clyburn-ushered-biden-to-the-white-house-now-the-sc-democrat-wants-his-help-in/article_74987226-8ca4-11eb-baac-f7a2cf1b8ee6.html
G. “The Biden Generation’s Last Chance” – The Atlantic
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2021/01/jim-clyburn-joe-biden-old-president-generation/617761/
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A.H. Scott’s book: Bad Guys Finish Fast & Good Guys Finish Last is available on Amazon!