American Nightmare

June 19, 2018

There have always been two Americas.  One is the America of the ideals expressed in our Declaration of Independence.  This is the America of the fairy tale we tell ourselves that what brings us together as a nation is a shared commitment to democratic principles like equality for all people and respect for the Rule of Law.  This America imagines itself as a country in which all cultures and colors are subsumed in a glorious melting pot of E Pluribus Unum.

The other America is the one where freedom for some required the enslavement of others.  It is one where the phrase, “all men are created equal,” meant only men, and only white ones.  One where the exclusion of people of color from real citizenship was enforced first at the end of a whip, then at the end of a rope and now at the end of a gun.  In this America, de jure second class citizenship for people of color was only eradicated after a bloody Civil War and an ensuing century of violent terrorism.  It is a country where even the modest victory of being able to sit at the same lunch counter, attend the same school, or vote, was met with a fierce backlash.

In this other America, people of color are supposed to view acknowledgement of our common humanity as an extraordinary act of largesse on the part of white Americans that requires our gratitude.  In this America, we bury the history of the explicit federal policy that created the ghettos and blame the black and brown residents for the conditions there.  In this America, we ignore that fact that most African American veterans couldn’t take advantage of the G.I. Bill and treat the resulting tenfold wealth gap between white Americans on the one hand, and black and Latino Americans on the other, as the natural order of things.

Those of us living in that other America — the one that has only lived up to the lofty words of its founding creed when forced to do so by the struggle and sacrifice of the marginalized and despised, don’t have the luxury of being shocked by the savage cruelty being carried out in our names.  We are utterly unsurprised by the blatant dishonesty of distaff Goebbels, Kirsten Nielsen.  No one who was paying attention to the career of diminutive racist martinet, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, could be surprised that he is hellbent on dismantling all of the civil rights gains of the last fifty years.

We see this country in all of its unflattering complexity and love it anyway.  Through hard won experience, we are clear on what needs to be done to halt its descent into a white nationalist, authoritarian state. Appealing to the empathy of Trump’s supporters is a waste of time, because these people fundamentally reject the premise that Latinx immigrant families deserve protection and respect.  Thus, they are unmoved by pictures or audiotapes of crying Latinx children.  Trying to convince Trump supporters that the administration’s policies are sadistic human rights abuses won’t work, because his supporters don’t believe in the essential humanity of people of color and our humanity is not up for debate.  If we are serious about saving the soul of this country, it will take nothing less than our votes, our dollars and our bodies.  Anything less and our American dream will quickly become our American nightmare.

#FamiliesBelongTogether (March on June 30, 2018)

#RAICES (Donate to The Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services)

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