(I submitted this before the election to a couple of publications that did not publish it. One liked it, but I was not credentialed enough. What do you think?)
Recently, the
Democratic Party’s presumptive presidential nominee, Former Vice President Joe
Biden infamously said on The Breakfast
Club podcast, “You’ve got more questions? Well I tell you what, if you have
a problem figuring out whether you’re voting for me or Trump, then you ain’t
black.”
This quote by
Biden seems to apply the existential idea of Jean-Paul Sartre’s “existence
precedes essence” in a roundabout way. In Sartre’s atheistic view, people are
involuntarily thrust into existence as meaningless clumps of cells. There is no
pre-rational essence, purpose or value for people in the mind of a god. At some
point after coming into existence and achieving rationality, a person decides
to have a self-imposed purpose, or no purpose at all. Sartre’s philosophy makes
sense if there is no God to ascribe essence onto a human life before coming
into existence; however, this atheistic view of essence would be shattered if
God in fact existed. In theism, our essence, purpose or value are predetermined
by God before we come into existence. In this case, the recognition of our
personal essence could coincide, or be in communion with God’s mind, at least
partially, or be in contradiction with it.
If Biden’s quote and
Sartre’s idea were synthesized, there might be a new atheistic possibility.
Other people, other gods, may take the place of the Judeo-Christian God in rationally
creating our essence. Assuming atheism is true, we could be open to the
possibility that someone else could impute their own perception of our essence,
purpose or value onto us. (This is not the same interpersonal dynamic as with The Gaze of Sartre’s Being and Nothingness when our
subjective essence is objectified by another while we reassert our own subjectivity.)
In this case, we could have as many essences as there are people. We may be in agreement
with their assignments or not, just like with the Judeo-Christian God, being in
communion with some gods and not others.
Joe Biden may not
know a particular black person, but if that person has a problem voting for him,
he or she is not black in essence to Biden. The former Vice President is assigning
essence not on one particular black person, but on an entire subset of black
people who don’t vote for him. Black leftists operating the Black Lives Matter
organization (BLM) and running his campaign are real black people. Black people
in President Trump’s administration, like Dr. Ben Carson, are not black,
whether he personally knows them or not.
Consider one black
leader who doesn’t seem to be in full communion with Vice President Biden. Black
Entertainment Television (BET) founder Robert Johnson told Fox News,
Now whether
[Joe Biden] was as he said trying to be a wise guy or whatever, but if you’ve
been supposedly hanging out with black people, you’re eight years Obama’s vice
president, you don’t think like that. There’s something in you that tells you I
can’t be halfway wise guy, halfway cute by telling a black man and by extension
every black person listing that if you even think about voting for somebody
other than me and then to use this so-called colloquial expression ‘you ain’t
black,’ that’s the biggest turn off I’ve heard from a politician in a long time.
It is a question for Biden as to
whether Mr. Johnson is black or not according to the “ain’t black” rhetoric.
Since Johnson is turned-off by Biden and may not vote for him, it doesn’t seem
that the BET founder would be part of the “every black person” subset according
to Biden. No doubt Mr. Johnson has another position on his own essence.
Now consider a
statement by Hawk Newsome, the black chairman of the Greater New York chapter
of BLM. He told the New York Post, “When
black people become police officers, they are no longer black. They are blue.
And I have been told this by numerous officers.” Newsome’s statement is another
instance of one person or group assigning essence, meaning or value to a group
of people beyond themselves.
This could have
real-world consequences. In view of the quote by Biden, no black life would
most likely be physically harmed if he voted for President Trump in 2020 since
voting is carried-out in private. It could be another story for black lives on
the police force if Newsome’s quote were taken seriously. If enough protestors,
BLM members, and Antifa members took Newsome’s idea to heart and really
believed that black cops are not really black lives that mattered, real harm
could come to their blue marked lives.
Lastly, BLM wrote
in 2018 that, “We deserve and thus we demand reproductive justice that gives us
autonomy over our bodies and our identities while ensuring that our children
and families are supported, safe, and able to thrive.” The pairing of
“reproductive justice” and “autonomy over our bodies” in this BLM quote implies
that abortion against preborn black boys and girls is demanded. This has the
most dangerous implications for black lives due to the hundreds of thousands of
black preborn babies killed every year. When preborn persons of color are not
wanted by their mothers, they become products of conception in an abortion
chamber.
The unwanted
designation of a preborn baby by his or her mother is the ultimate imputation
of essence, value and meaning by another person. The differences between being designated
a wanted or an unwanted human in utero
are human or parasite, precious or bio-waste, life or death.
Mother Theresa’s
words at her acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 speak to the power of ascribing
value and meaning to preborn children.
And I feel
one thing I want to share with you all, the greatest destroyer of peace today
is the cry of the innocent unborn child. For if a mother can murder her own
child in her own womb, what is left for you and for me to kill each other? …
[N]obody speaks of the millions of little ones who have been conceived to the
same life as you and I, to the life of God, and we say nothing, we allow it. … [Nations]
are afraid of the little one, they are afraid of the unborn child, and the
child must die because they don’t want to feed one more child, to educate one
more child, the child must die.
At the end of the day, if a mother
can declare that her innocent unborn child is not really a human child in
essence due to asserting autonomy over her body and her identity in order to
kill her child, there is nothing left for you or for me, for black lives or for
blue lives, for black Biden voters or for all Trump voters from killing each
other.
The final solution
against violence is found in the truth of each human’s inherent dignity as Imago Dei which is our true essence,
given by God to men and women of all skin hues, born and preborn at the moment
of our created existence. This is why the Declaration of Independence announced
self-evidently that our essence and unalienable Rights came from our Creator,
not imparted to us by those in government, by others, or even by ourselves.
Nationally reasserting and unapologetically teaching this American Creed in all
schools is the key to bringing peace and unity back to our beloved country.
