Image by enriquelopezgarre from Pixabay
Lofton County, VA was an interesting place in the spring of 2020, just like everywhere else in the world, but Thomas Stepforth Sr. almost always wanted to laugh when he stepped back into the business world as it had been transformed, and people looked at him in shock that somehow, he and his Black male self was surviving and thriving.
Now it was true that Covid-19 would, in some regions, kill Black men at nine times the rate of others – more reasons for that than Mr. Stepforth let himself think about when he and his son, Major Thomas Stepforth Jr., were not working on things in both Lofton County and Washington D.C. to deal with those reasons.
But that was not the reason for the surprise in Lofton County … it had to do with the things Mr. Stepforth, a billionaire, found his way to on and offline … on a Zoom call, his silver-crowned bronze head stood out in a way in which he had never stood out before, without the least bit of shame or insecurity, and this was something many others were not prepared for.
Lofton County's aged white elite was full of fear at this moment. 2019 and early 2020 had showed them that the Black and Latino communities – 42 percent of the county – had left the old program, but even that paled in comparison to the threat of Covid-19, deadly 15 percent of the time in their age group. Still, Mr. Stepforth looked fit, healthy, fearless, and handsome – and thus it was highlighted that the people he represented might well outlast the elite, and their order, and come out looking good.
This was mildly dangerous … but not necessarily to Mr. Stepforth. He noted the red faces and thus blood pressure spikes when men whiter and yet poorer than himself talked about what they were going to do, and he calmly explained why they were not going to do any such thing, and then put forth a well-prepared alternative that allowed others to go along with him because they would profit more. When you were a multi-billionaire, and your words carried the organized support or withdrawal of 42 percent of the county, you pretty much were invincible.
“It's like they had a Black Panther in the henhouse – what were all those poor chickens, who sit and brag at home about how they are going to use this crisis to turn the clock back in Lofton County, supposed to do in my father's face?” Major Stepforth said to his mother about one meeting he sat in on. “They ought to be glad he's just defending our stuff and not particularly hungry to take their stuff away from them – this month!”
Mrs. Stepforth smiled.
“Your father and I were just a bit too young to be Black Panthers, but we were very much influenced by them and the Deacons of Defense out of Bogalusa, LA. Both groups are still hated because they taught the generation with them and just after them to stand up … and the only way the U.S. government could stop it was to flood the neighborhood with drugs and guns in the late 70s and 80s … but you see, we are still not all the way stopped!”
Great, as always, my friend.
Thank you very kindly -- and thanks for reading!