TIME TO MAN UP

One final plea to the white men in America to help themselves, while helping others ...

Dear White Men,

It’s been three months since I last spoke to you directly, so with less than a week to go before the most important election in American history, I think it’s important we have one final chat just to make sure we are on the same page.

I know there are other places you’d rather be, so if you don’t have a mother, daughter, sister, aunt or niece you are free to go do all your important, macho white man things.

Otherwise, please stick around, and thanks in advance.

Oh, and women, you are certainly free to go, but I’m always better with your company, and thankful for your strength and wisdom. As always, if you have anything to add, the comment section will be left open to you.

It’s never too late for us white guys to learn a thing or two … Right, white guys?

Look, I’m addressing you again today because frankly, I’m concerned I’m not getting through to too many of you white dudes out there, and selfishly it’s beginning to embarrass me. You are now on the verge of being absolutely impossible to defend, or even be around.

If you read me at all regularly, you know I’m not much for all these damn political polls. I think they are endlessly wrong and often politically loaded, but enough of them consistently reveal the same odious thing: The majority of us white guys in America are lining up to do the worst-possible thing, and support the putrid, nuclear-powered liar and bigot, who attacked us.

I mean, W - T - F?

How is it you STILL don’t understand that there is no excuse for defending such a low-grade creep, who brags of writing love letters to dictators, and groping women because he thinks he can?

Do you really defend this? Well, DO YOU??? What if he did this to your wife? Or your daughter? All good?

THINK about this, damn you.

And what about the endless attacks on our military, where many of us served? He calls our fallen “suckers and losers.” He tromps on their graves to score political points. He has been called “the most dangerous person to this country” by HIS chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

I served my country, men, and this is absolutely disqualifying.

And before we go further here, I’d like you to stop the childish eye-rolling about why I am only addressing white men, and not other men with this stern talking-to. I’ve heard some of you whine before about this one, and I am sick of it. It’s pathetic. Grow up (but more on that later).

I am addressing only white men, because we are so obviously the damn problem right now, and because I have had 64 years of experience being a white man, and not a single second of experience being a Latino, or a Black, or an Asian, or any other man ... I do know enough of these folks, however, and try my best to walk a mile in their shoes. I can tell you for a fact there are plenty of rocks in their roads that you (we) never once had to tiptoe over.

Our skin color has given us ridiculous privilege we have not earned, and if you lack the minimal capacity to acknowledge at least that, then answer this question for me: Why, in the entire history of this country, has there only been one man of color elected president, and NO women?

And another: Why, are the 10 richest people in America all white men?

And one more: Why does the typical white household have nine times as much wealth as the typical Black household in America?

I’ll give you a brief answer to these questions before moving on: Because the capitalistic system was set up by white men to benefit other white men that’s why. Because for hundreds of years only white property owners —men — were even allowed to vote in the “United” States of America, that’s why.

And if I’m breaking through at all here, and you want to learn more, please take the time to listen to this interview by the great Terry Gross on NPR with Pulitzer Prize-winning author Isabel Wilkerson, who makes the iron-clad case American’s caste system is behind our nation’s terrible inequities.

When you understand all this, is it any surprise then, that these damn polls consistently reveal the fact that men of color — some in overwhelming numbers — support Kamala Harris for president? Because of the path they have walked, they are smart enough to know for a fact that Trump is only interested in supporting the billionaire bastards who have been stepping on ALL OUR NECKS for centuries.

It’s why he gives THEM tax cuts, not us. They OWN him.

He doesn’t give a single shit about you, white guys. He only sees you as another pathetic mark in his endless con.

So a diverse cross-section of Americans, who bring a wealth of important and telling life experiences to the table, support the woman for president, and only us white guys are holding out for the monster who degrades them.

You realize how that makes us look, right? RIGHT????

I’m not good with this, dammit, and for the life of me will never understand how you are either.

But if after reading this, you still aren’t convinced, and are plenty pleased with yourself with being conned by this 78-year-old, dangerous jackass, and voting against your own interests, I have one final ask:

I’d like you to go find a picture of that special woman in your life. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

OK, are you looking at this beautiful person? Are you thinking about all she has done for you, and given you?

Keep staring into her beautiful eyes … and ask yourself why you wouldn’t do everything — I mean EVERYTHING — in your power to support her and the choices she makes.

Ask yourself if you would allow this beautiful person to be jailed by another man who disagreed with her choices? Because this — and nothing less — is what is on the line in America right now, white men.

And what if this woman you love so much was raped by another man, was impregnated, and because of Trump’s heinous laws was forced to carry the fetus to term? You good with this, guys? Well, ARE YOU????

What if this woman you love was bleeding out on an operating table, and because of Trump’s depraved laws doctors were prevented from saving her life?

Still all good?

It’s not, is it.

It’s terrible and barbaric.

You know, I’ve seen some pretty clever ads from Democrats recently aimed at women who live in households with insecure, abusive white men who expect their wives and daughters to vote like they do. You know what I’m talking about, fellas.

These ads make the sharp point that nobody has to know how you vote — that what each of us do in the voting booth is completely private. If quietly voting for the candidate who has your interests at heart will keep the peace in the household, then so be it. It is far better than acquiescing and voting for the monster, who wants to drag you back into the 1950s.

Well, if any of you guys still aren’t ready to publicly stand up to your macho male friends and relatives and urge them to do what’s right by supporting the candidate who will protect all our rights, maybe the very least you can do is the right thing in the privacy of the voting booth.

It’s a step in the right direction, and I guarantee the people you allege to love most will thank you for it.

(D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here.)

(That’s a picture of me, and I was never prouder to vote for anybody in my life than I was to vote for Kamala Harris here in the Battleground State of Wisconsin.)