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Monday, October 31, 2016 4:57:07 PM
Black Voters, Aghast at Trump, Find a Place of Food and Comfort
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERGOCT. 30, 2016
A home in East Mount Airy, a neighborhood in Philadelphia long considered a symbol of upward black mobility. Credit Hilary Swift for The New York Times
PHILADELPHIA — Natalie Solomon was always an early riser. Back in her days at a Ford-owned auto electronics plant, managing production schedules and bringing in $60,000 a year with overtime, she would be behind the wheel of her Ford Explorer by 4 a.m. — in time to grab coffee at Wawa, swing by her locker, grab her smock and get on the factory floor before 5.
“But that part of my life is closed now,” she said. Still, at 60, car or no car, she needs a morning routine.
So twice each week at 5:30 a.m., earbuds in and listening to a motivational speaker “to get myself together,” she pads down the steps of her stone house and heads for the No. 18 bus.
[to the end]
In Mr. Trump’s statements, people here concede, there is a tiny kernel of truth. Yes, there is violence in their community; Ms. Solomon, in her quiet grief, knows this. Yes, many people here lost their jobs, even under an African-American president, but some of Ms. Solomon’s friends from the factory are now employed.
When people here watch Trump rallies, some see imagery that reminds them of their childhoods in the Deep South; some go so far as to wonder if Mr. Trump’s supporters have been planted by the Ku Klux Klan. Their feelings about Mrs. Clinton are mixed, but those who are voting for president will vote for her.
They hold Republicans in disdain. But their reaction to Mr. Trump is especially deep and visceral.
“Back to slavery days,” Ms. Solomon said gravely. “Do as master say.”
But if Mr. Trump has brought racial animus to the fore, some see that as a blessing. “It kind of pulled a blindfold off of America,” Inez Muhammad, 54, a disabled federal worker, said.
Like many here and across the nation, Ms. Solomon is looking past Election Day: She fears that Washington “will be a mess,” with Mr. Trump kicking up a fuss if he loses. She has been working on her résumé and intends to re-enroll in college, to prove to her grandchildren that “if Nana can get a degree, you can too.”
In the meantime, she has volunteered to help Democrats register voters and pushing everyone she knows to go to the polls, especially her grandson, who is 18. “I told him, that’s not a given right for black people,” she said. “Too many people died for you to give up that right.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/31/us/philadelphia-donald-trump-black-voters.html
Many remember history. Many see too much of history in the bigoted and racist bully-boy Trump.
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERGOCT. 30, 2016
A home in East Mount Airy, a neighborhood in Philadelphia long considered a symbol of upward black mobility. Credit Hilary Swift for The New York Times
PHILADELPHIA — Natalie Solomon was always an early riser. Back in her days at a Ford-owned auto electronics plant, managing production schedules and bringing in $60,000 a year with overtime, she would be behind the wheel of her Ford Explorer by 4 a.m. — in time to grab coffee at Wawa, swing by her locker, grab her smock and get on the factory floor before 5.
“But that part of my life is closed now,” she said. Still, at 60, car or no car, she needs a morning routine.
So twice each week at 5:30 a.m., earbuds in and listening to a motivational speaker “to get myself together,” she pads down the steps of her stone house and heads for the No. 18 bus.
[to the end]
In Mr. Trump’s statements, people here concede, there is a tiny kernel of truth. Yes, there is violence in their community; Ms. Solomon, in her quiet grief, knows this. Yes, many people here lost their jobs, even under an African-American president, but some of Ms. Solomon’s friends from the factory are now employed.
When people here watch Trump rallies, some see imagery that reminds them of their childhoods in the Deep South; some go so far as to wonder if Mr. Trump’s supporters have been planted by the Ku Klux Klan. Their feelings about Mrs. Clinton are mixed, but those who are voting for president will vote for her.
They hold Republicans in disdain. But their reaction to Mr. Trump is especially deep and visceral.
“Back to slavery days,” Ms. Solomon said gravely. “Do as master say.”
But if Mr. Trump has brought racial animus to the fore, some see that as a blessing. “It kind of pulled a blindfold off of America,” Inez Muhammad, 54, a disabled federal worker, said.
Like many here and across the nation, Ms. Solomon is looking past Election Day: She fears that Washington “will be a mess,” with Mr. Trump kicking up a fuss if he loses. She has been working on her résumé and intends to re-enroll in college, to prove to her grandchildren that “if Nana can get a degree, you can too.”
In the meantime, she has volunteered to help Democrats register voters and pushing everyone she knows to go to the polls, especially her grandson, who is 18. “I told him, that’s not a given right for black people,” she said. “Too many people died for you to give up that right.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/31/us/philadelphia-donald-trump-black-voters.html
Many remember history. Many see too much of history in the bigoted and racist bully-boy Trump.
It was Plato who said, “He, O men, is the wisest, who like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in truth worth nothing”
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