Having talked about the horrific Jim Crow South on multiple occasions, both here in my journal and elsewhere on my website, I applaud the fact that Sinners, the Black Southern gothic blockbuster, is getting the attention it deserves. Too many people think the horrors of slavery ended with the Confederacy’s defeat and the 13th Amendment; that’s what people want to believe, but the reality for Black people in the Jim Crow South was scarcely better than slavery. When people talk about reparations for African Americans, they’re usually thinking of the 250 years of slavery, but there’s plenty to be repaired and reconciled about the 100 years between 1865 and 1965. I won’t elaborate on Sinners’ vampire-laden plot—there have been too many spoilers written already—but I hope the film sparks a healthy discussion of some painful truths about America’s history.
Unfortunately, I can’t talk about Sinners and the violence done to Black people without mentioning the disappointing news out of Memphis last week about the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols in 2023. Three (now former) police officers were acquitted of all charges, including second degree murder, by a predominantly white jury. Although two other former officers previously took guilty pleas for their involvement, the verdict represented another sad day in our country’s long history of racial injustice. It should be noted that a Justice Department investigation concluded that the Memphis Police Department had engaged in a pattern of excessive violence and discriminatory treatment of Black people. This humble spirit has never advocated for defunding the police, but unfortunately despicable behavior on the part of some officers continues to reflect the worst sins of Jim Crow.
MAGA’s Mad King is Proving a Corrupt Fraud!
And talk about a sinner carrying on the tradition of exploitation that Blacks were subjected to in the Jim Crow South, Mad King Trump is ruling over the most corrupt administration in American history. We know Trump is an expert at controlling the narrative with his endless barrage of shiny objects, but it’s increasingly clear that the whole Trump presidency, all his trampling on the Constitution, the entire tariff/trade fiasco, even the deporting of American citizens, is nothing but one extended distraction from the enormous grift that’s taking place right in front of our eyes. If you look at what Trump and his two dimwit sons, Don Jr. and Eric, are doing with crypto and meme coins, the opportunity for corruption (i.e. bribes for the mad king and his family), is almost boundless, something the corrupt politicians of pre-tech yesteryear could hardly dream of.
In the meantime, Trump’s head DOGE honcho, Elon Musk, may have destroyed the Tesla brand with his chainsaw, but his greed and kutspa are indefatigable. (Talk about a vampire, what can be said about the world’s richest man publicly delighting in taking food and medicine away from some of the world’s poorest, most desperate people?) He seems determined to use his relationship with Trump to monopolize control of communications for his Starlink satellites, including overhauling the country’s outdated air-traffic-control system. Musk wants to be lord and master of the world’s communications, and he’s hoping the power-hungry mad king can make it happen.
Coming up against the judiciary in his quest to deport American citizens without due process, Trump now wants to suspend the right of habeas corpus, the legal principle that protects citizens from imprisonment without first being brought before a judge. As scary as that is, it’s possible that Musk’s chainsaw will always be the symbol of Mad King Trump running rampant over our Constitution in pursuit of personal gain for himself, his family, and his wealthy supporters. Despite the pretense of populism, MAGA is nothing but a grift, a dangerous slide toward an oligarchy of vampires.