It’s a very difficult question, Nicole. America’s not unique in its sense as a country. We’re not unique in our evils to be honest with you. I think where we may be singular is a refusal to acknowledge them and the legends and myths we tell about our inherent goodness to hide and cover and conceal so that we can maintain a kind of willful ignorance that protects our innocence. See, the thing is that when the tea party was happening, pundits were saying “Oh it’s just about economic populist- it’s not about race.” But people knew. People knew. Social scientists were already writing that what was driving the tea party was anxieties about demographic shifts that the country was changing - that they were seeing those racially ambiguous babies on Cheerios commercials. that the country wasn’t quite feeling like it was a white nation anymore. Now people were screaming from the top of their lungs. This is not simply just economic populism, this is the ugly, underbelly of the country. See the thing is this and I’ll say this and I’ll take the hit on this. There are communities that have had to bear the brunt of white America confronting the danger of their innocence. And it happens every generation. So somehow we have a kind of “Oh my God! Is this who we are?” And just again- another generation of babies. Think about it. The two year old had his bones broken by two parents trying to shield him from being killed. A woman who has been married to this man for as long as I’ve been on the planet almost lost her husband. For what?! And so what - we know is that the country has been playing politics. For a long time. On this hatred. We KNOW this. So it’s easy for us to place it all on Donald Trump’s shoulders. It’s easy for us to place Pittsburgh on his shoulders. It’s easy for me to place Charlottesville on his shoulders. It’s easy to place El Paso on his shoulders. THIS IS US. And we if we’re gonna get past this, we can’t blame it on him. He is the manifestation of the ugliness that’s in us. I’ve had the privilege of growing up in a tradition that didn’t believe in the myths and the legends because we had to bear the brunt of them. Either we’re going to change, Nicole, or we are going to do this again, and again, and again. And babies are going to have to grow up without mothers and fathers, uncles and aunts, friends - while we’re trying to convince white folk to finally leave behind a history that will maybe or embrace a history that might set them free from being white. Finally. Finally.
#Thisisus
0 Comments