The two biggest civil rights blessings ever may be smartphones and Donald Trump.
Smartphones’ impact is obvious. Eighty-one percent of Americans now have them, which translates into hundreds of millions of video cameras among us.
Many now are reflexively activated against deadly cops – and when yet another white person accosts someone for (verb of choice)-ing while Black/Brown/Asian.
As George Floyd’s slaying showed, video is better evidence than eyewitnesses against privileged killers.
A blessing.
But Trump?
Think about it. While video preserves racist behavior in a form that cannot be denied, Trump struts it in ways that only the willfully ignorant, unrepentant and politically spineless will deny.
His behavior attracts Americans fearing the loss of unearned privilege. But for a majority – activists, the sympathetic, even the formerly apathetic – he is a claxon, louder and more visible than any Bull Connor or George Wallace.
He masks nothing, perpetually tweeting overt prejudice. His presence declares that racism is not and was never only yesteryear’s problem, only a regional problem, only someone else’s problem.
So, while we must have him, a kind of blessing.
