Dear President Donald Trump,
Grace and Peace and Love be multiplied.
I wanted to offer my congratulations but our state of emergency precludes me from empty pleasantries. Further, you rode a wave of division, fear and hatred into your electoral college victory for the presidency of these “yet to be” United States. I must admit that you brilliantly united in unholy wedlock, manipulating the media with your cult of celebrity and the ugly unresolved issue of race and racism to give birth to your illegitimate victory. Your “reality show campaign” stirred up white rage and produced a “whitelash” to use the explosive expression and “Messy Truth” of Van Jones. You did and said anything to get elected by preying on ethnic, religious and racial hostilities in a nation that has never been truthful about the ugly undercurrent of white supremacy and heteropatriarchy. You’ve even placed a picture of Andrew Jackson, the genocidal, slave holding racist in the Oval Office because you see him as a model. You appointed a neo nazi, white supremacist as an influential and powerful leader on your staff. All of those are warning signs that portend your concept of making “America Great Again” has everything to do with making America hate, again. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr was right when he quoted James Baldwin and wondered if we had integrated into a burning house? Our house is on fire and you are throwing gasoline into the conflagration.
I hear from those who’ve met you in person that you are a nice man. If that is true then you must be bipolar because your policies and nominations are mean spirited and a reflection of white supremacy which, in case you don’t know, has an expiration date on it. In love, I offer you some medication for your bipolarity.
Honestly, I am praying for you. I am praying that God would arrest you and cause you to experience a repentance that will lead to personal and national transformation. I write praying that you will rise to the dignity of the presidential office and be delivered from the petty politics of demonizing others.
Our nation is sick and you are feeding more toxins and poisons into the body politic.
I couldn’t remain silent as you embrace Islamophobia and xenophobia while marching this nation towards an ugly fascism. You have ignored the pained protests of the indigenous Standing Rock Sioux and jeopardized the health of millions because of your determination to repeal Obamacare; because apparently you don’t care. You have attacked the media that was complicit in your election because they didn’t hold you accountable for your “alternative facts” and belief that if you say something that’s not true, long enough and loud enough, it will become true. Now you have used religion as a weapon with the full support of your puppets in the pulpit.
In the Name of Jesus, stop it!
This nation, snatched violently from the natives, was built on the backs of stolen Africans and with the hands of immigrants. Now you’ve issued an executive order targeting those you have “othered” in the name of religion. In the Name of Jesus, I stand in solidarity with my Muslim sisters and brothers and oppose this bigoted ban. If you are so concerned about terrorism from religious extremists then ban the Ku Klux Klan. Don’t forget that Timothy McVeigh was a Christian terrorist. Those clinic bombing pro life zealots kill people in the name of their god. Ban them! Native Americans were slaughtered by immigrant Christian terrorists.
You seem to relish photo ops with black people who have high profiles but limited public policy understanding. Worse, you have surrounded yourself with preachers who would rather be puppets than prophets. Even David needed a Nathan to keep him in check. I have some Nathan’s I’d like to recommend. They stand in the prophetic tradition of Amos of Tekoa and Jesus of Nazareth, Martin King and Fannie Lou Hamer. Why don’t you invite Minister Danielle Ayers, Dr. William Barber, Dr. Traci Blackmon, Dr. Amos Brown, Dr. Iva Carruthers, Dr. Keri Day, Dr. Michael Eric Dyson, Judge Reverend Wendell Griffin, Drs. Otis Moss, Sr and Jr., Dr. James Perkins, Father Michael Pfleger, Dr. W. Franklyn Richardson, Dr. Gina Stewart, and Dr. Raphael Warnock, to name a few. They would prophetically lift your presidency and policies from the dark place of hate to the sunlit spaces of justice and love that would move America to becoming a “more perfect union.”
You need prophets like the above mentioned in order to insure that you don’t go the way of another who was intoxicated by his self importance. Please, Mr. President, read Daniel chapter 5. Belshazzar had a party celebrating his greatness, that was crashed by a hand that wrote on the wall. The handwriting on the wall was interpreted by a foreigner with a different religion than Belshazzar. His name was Daniel. Daniel interpreted the handwriting on the wall “God has numbered your days with an expiration date. You’ve been weighed in the balances and found wanting. Your kingdom has been divided and given over…” in your case to Russia!
Mr. President, the handwriting is on the wall. “What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with your God.” The handwriting is on the wall. “Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves,
for the rights of all who are destitute.
Speak up and judge fairly;
defend the rights of the poor and needy.”
The handwriting is on the wall. You are obsessed that your presidency not be illegitimate because the Russians appointed you and you lost the popular vote even as your Republican Party suppressed the Black vote (That’s what you should investigate. Voter fraud is fake news but voter suppression is real). Prophetic justice reminds you that you built your political platform questioning the legitimacy of the first Black president and now your presidency is illegitimate! “Be not deceived, God is not mocked whatever you sow you will reap!” The old saying goes “What goes around, comes around.”
The handwriting is on the wall!
I write as an ally of what Angela Davis refers to as “an inclusive and intersectional feminism that calls upon all of us to join the resistance to racism, to Islamophobia, to anti-Semitism, to misogyny, to capitalist exploitation,” and Palestinian apartheid.
The handwriting is on the wall.
Psalm 72 is instructive for leaders “he (or she) delivers the needy when they call, the poor and those who have no helper.”
The handwriting is on the wall because Jesus warned that when He judges the nations He will separate the sheep from the goats. Will he say to you, Mr. President,
“I was hungry and your executive order made it more difficult for low and moderate income families to secure a home loan and you appointed a gifted surgeon, who needs to go some where and sit down, with no experience to give leadership to HUD.
I was thirsty and you issued an executive order to run roughshod over Native American, Standing Rock Sioux sacred grounds but Flint residents still don’t have new pipes for fresh water from a fresh water source.
I was in prison because of the war on drugs which was really a war on black and poor people and because of stop and frisk; and you appointed Jefferson Beauregard Sessions as a racist fox to guard the henhouse of justice
I was a stranger and you built a wall and issued a ban on muslims.” You will ask “Jesus when did this happen.” He will say “Inasmuch as you did it to the least of these, you’ve done it to me.”
Mr. President, the handwriting is on the wall.
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I am praying for you and this sick nation to be healed.
Peace and Power,
Frederick Douglass Haynes, III
