Suburbanista

Someone needs to tell Donald Trump that he's got his suburbs on backwards.  Sure, they're not one size fits all, but their style has changed.  Suburbs no longer wear uniforms; they're colorful and varied, even subversive at times.  I know, because I live in one.

Determined to eliminate a fair housing law established under Barack Obama, President Trump is warning that Joe Biden's zoning policies will "abolish our beautiful and successful suburbs."  He thinks he's scaring us by saying that crime rates will rise and property values decline.  It's all code, of course, easily deciphered, for Black and Brown people moving in.  "Suburbia will be no longer," he says.

The trouble for Trump is that suburbia isn't so White anymore.  Nor is it Republican.  In fact, Democratic households outnumber Republican ones in my north Durham neighborhood, where people of different colors, ages, and genders have lived together for years.  Many of us detest Trump's endless race baiting, and we denounce his response to protests in support of Black Lives Matter.

Interestingly enough, protesters in Portland have employed one of suburbia's trademark symbols--the leaf blower--to counter tear gas attacks from federal agents.  It's as if urban and suburban citizens have joined together to demand civil rights.  Whereas Trump wishes to pit the two against each other, we've teamed up to stand him down.

So on this Sunday in July when the body of John Lewis crosses one last time over the Edmund Pettus Bridge, soon to be renamed in his honor, let's remember what he said: "I believe in freedom of speech, but I also believe that we have an obligation to condemn speech that is racist, bigoted, anti-Semitic, or hateful."

Racist appeals to suburban voters meet the Congressman's definition and must be condemned at every opportunity.