The Bitter Butter Award of early 2017 goes to … drum roll, please … Georgia Representative John Lewis.
Why?
For refusing to attend the inauguration of the 45th President of the United Sates; and for using his platform as a civil rights icon to stir up dissent and delegitimize the election and Donald Trump’s presidency, setting a poor example for his party and younger generations who need to see democracy work.
Betty bought some bitter butter, but the bitter butter was too bitter for the better batter, so she bought some better butter for the bitter batter and made the bitter batter better!
Spoken quickly this tongue twister was useful to impress small children with my verbal skills. Teaching art for nearly a decade gave me a front-row seat on the state of the American child and family. I have seen the frustration of a child who could not find a crayon to match her skin color and made a point of ordering the multicultural art supplies that are now available; in January our art lessons included making posters about MLK.
Children are more malleable and accepting of differences but they also pick up on neighborhood tensions and attitudes. When adults set a good example of fair play children follow. When teachers and authority figures cry foul everyone takes sides and division occurs.
It happened after the presidential election in 2000, and unfortunately it is happening again, as Democrats contest the election results and some boycott the inauguration Friday.
Snowflakes, youths unable to accept the election results, fuss and whine and plot to disrupt the inaugural festivities. The adults and senior members in the losing party, instead of setting a good example, add to the hostile climate.
What has happened to the peaceful transition of power which America has modeled for the world since its beginning? We did not see this strife when Barack Obama was elected in 2008 nor 2012 despite the bitter disappointment on the Right.
When did we last see it? Oh yes, the last time the Democrats lost.
Back on January 20, 2001, when George W. Bush began his first term, there had been an extended battle for the presidency and ballots were being hand-counted in Florida as the nation waited. It came down to a Supreme Court decision in favor of Bush who (like Trump) had won the electoral vote. Al Gore won the popular vote (though some have disputed those results as well). A few sore losers have never gotten over that court ruling and never gave Bush a chance. Instead, partisan (and racial) bitterness has continued to plague politics even though in 2008 America elected its first black president and re-elected him in 2012.
In the aftermath of the 2000 election I yearned for the kind of eloquence Dr. King was noted for to soothe and inspire those adults who took offense during the extended and contentious ballot re-count. I took some time out to jot down some thoughts at a bookstore coffee shop. While waiting for something profound to percolate up with consolation and healing for my irate, disconsolate African-American compatriots, my eyes fell on a poetry display. If only I could soothe angry, frayed emotions with a poem or an essay as persuasive as the words of the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; a soft answer to turn away wrath … a bridge over troubled waters.
But what did I behold sitting in suburbia without a person of color in sight but the cover of a poetry book by Nikki Giovanni? I remembered her writings from college; her poems sometimes called for revolution and promoted black liberation. She has accumulated more than 20 honorary degrees for her poetry. As I began to read one, two, then a third poem, I suddenly felt I was in the wrong aisle. Ms. Giovanni was not into bridge building, but was actually calling for violence, vengeance, and reverse racism. (“We would also suggest blinding or the removal of at least two eyes from one of the heads of all albino freaks.”) … Bitter butter!
I put the book back on the shelf and the bridge collapsed into a sea of negativity. Instead of soothing words I got my Irish up. How many Bettys are buying this bitter butter? How many spread it on their toast each morning and serve it to their kids like they did during “the Troubles” in Ireland? The recipe for peace and progress calls for better ingredients like those MLK called for: wisdom, justice, hope, and non-violence.
Sad to say, the first black president did not follow MLK’s recipe for the country to be a melting pot and the beacon of liberty to the world. Instead, we will remember soon-to-be-former President Obama’s administration as a time when police were characterized as racist and occasionally assassinated, and when the president often seemed to be either on the wrong side of the divide or just aloof.
Perhaps as a student Obama was all too familiar with Ms. Giovanni’s Bitter Butter.
