"Dear white people."

  Frank Vyan Walton wrote the following essay and it's posted over at Daily Kos.

It is important because it can give those of you in the majority population another glimpse of the mindset of some individuals in the African American community. Especially as it relates to one Donald J trump.  

"I know it’s been a good long while since we had an honest and open conversation. I can’t say that I speak for everyone from my particular demographic of African Americans, because we don’t all agree—just as we all know not every Caucasian American thinks or believes the same.

But before things go too much further and get too much worse, we need to talk. Seriously talk. Not at each other, not about each other from another room, but to each other.

First: Let’s get to brass tacks about this Trump guy.

He says he wants to make things better for all of us, which would be nice. However his track record is a bit spotty. He once did something nice for Jesse Jackson. Okay, that’s cool. But he was also president of his father’s company when they were deliberately trying to keep black people from living in their buildings. Yeah, sure, that was a long time ago. In the meantime there was the Central Park Five incident, when he called for the death penalty to be used on five innocent black teenagers accused of a brutal rape. That one still kinda burns.

He desegregated his Mar-a-Lago Club, but the truth isn’t that he did that for the benefit of blacks and Jews who had been excluded from other clubs. He did it to get back at the Palm Beach society, which looked down its nose at him.

For many longtime residents, Mr. Trump's decision to set up camp here was bad enough. That was in 1985, when Mr. Trump paid about $7 million for the 128-room Mar-a-Lago mansion, built 70 years ago by cereal heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post. Over the decades, Ms. Post's party schedule had placed the estate at the center of Palm Beach social circles. By the time she died in 1973, it was a local institution. (Part of the original guest quarters eventually became the Bath and Tennis Club.)

Mr. Trump arrived well-known, though not necessarily well-regarded. He brought with him a reputation as a real-estate developer accustomed to battling local residents who resist his wishes and as a latecomer to high society who hadn't learned the art of discretion.
…
In the early 1990s, Mr. Trump found himself mired in a costly divorce just as real-estate markets began to slide. He complained openly about the $3 million a year in maintenance costs that the estate was costing him. He proposed subdividing the 17-acre property into smaller lots for residential development.

That set the stage for Mr. Trump's first big battle with Palm Beach leaders. The town, which years earlier had approved a subdivision proposal for the site from another developer, rejected Mr. Trump's plan, prompting him to sue for $50 million in damages. He dropped the suit when the idea emerged to turn the home into a private club. The town council agreed to that, but placed restrictions on the club, such as allowing no more than 500 members, to allay residents' fears about traffic congestion and noise. In the spring of 1995, the Mar-a-Lago Club officially opened, and is now charging $75,000 for membership, plus annual dues.

So here’s the thing: Mar-a-Lago wasn’t really a club prior to Trump’s arrival—it was a private residence. It was a home. Trump needed to make some cash, so he tried to make it into 17 separate residential properties he could sell or lease, which the city council rejected. That’s when he decided to make it a private club with a $75,000 annual membership fee, like some of other local clubs.  Many of those clubs were segregated, his new club was not, and he used that fact as a way to cry that he was being discriminated against by the city.

Last December, after the council refused to lift the restrictions, Mr. Trump filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Palm Beach, alleging that the town was discriminating against Mar-a-Lago, in part because it is open to Jews and African-Americans. The suit seeks $100 million in damages
…
Even the Anti-Defamation League in New York, which in a 1994 battle forced Palm Beach's Sailfish Club to open up its membership, was concerned that Mr. Trump was using the charge of anti-Semitism for his own mercantile ends. The league's national director, Abraham Foxman, met with Mr. Trump soon after to air his concerns. According to Mr. Foxman, Mr. Trump agreed to modify his claims to allege only that the town council has treated Mar-a-Lago unfairly, compared with other clubs in town.

So just to set the record straight: He was in fact trying to get a better deal out of the Palm Beach City Council for his club, not doing anyone else a favor. This one time, he wasn’t as jerky as the other local clubs, so kudos on that. However since then, generally speaking, he really hasn’t done anything else for black people. Not really.

But now he says he’s our only hope. Now he says only he can make things better for us. And he starts out by saying things have never been worse for us, “ever ever ever.” Do you understand why that’s not a comforting appeal? If not, I’ll let Don Lemon explain it for me. [More here]

Thoughts?

*Pic from ussatoday.com