Notes on America #3
America is built on racism, it has segregated people by race, it has locked people up for their race, it has systematically incarcerated, oppressed and murdered people because of their race. What’s amazing is the reason America has been racist…is actually the best part of America. We the people get to choose what America is.
For most of Americas existence, Americans were fine with all kinds of racism, then slowly the majority of citizens weren’t…quite…as okay with it. Change happens, we’ve seen the results: My parents could get married, the romanticized middle class became attainable for more people, you could even dunk in the NBA. Change isn’t fast, and it isn’t easy, but it happens.
Now there is a growing trend to try and minimize our shared history. To retrofit a more pleasing narrative about the now, because while we are arguably less racist than 1819 and 1919, it’s become some kind of trend to act like America no longer has racist people as part of and in power within its constituency in 2019. That’s just false, and it’s okay to say that, it’s our right, and even our responsibility.
Calling out racism is a very American thing.
Fleeing in distress from your homeland, immigrating to America, becoming a citizen, getting a public education, being elected to congress by your peers, then criticizing America because you believe that it can be better, is about the most textbook example of an idealized American story possible. I don’t want those people to leave, I want them to lead.
I love America, at times almost comically and stereotypically so. America is never ending evolution. It’s an experiment. It’s magic. It’s the ultimate startup. I don’t think America is failing, we’re just learning that it doesn’t revolve around us, and how quickly “us” can become “them” when uncertainty enters our heads.
This is your America. When you agree with a subtle racist statement because you don’t want to “make it awkward” you’re the problem. When you gloss over marginalization of women’s rights because it doesn’t impact you, you’re the problem. When you ignore LGBTQ+ issues because you’re happily CIS, you’re the problem.
We’re the problem. I’m the problem.
I’d like to propose that what you’re hearing now… this intense, loud, incessant, twisted rhetoric… isn’t the rumble of America crashing back down on the runway. It’s the sonic boom before we accelerate again. It’s designed to wear us down, and stop momentum. Literal human sound waves building up in front of us, stale dead air doing everything it can to convince us not to push forward. It’s an auditory manifestation of fear. We lose when we stop realizing that the only way is through.
If you can rally, rally. If you have private conversations in powerful back rooms, whisper on. If you only have the energy left to tweet, that’s cool, tweet. If you’re tired of explaining, that’s okay too, just listen. We only fall when we remain still, so by god, just don’t stop moving forward.
