We white kids were sold “a bill of goods” in school. (Definition: “A plan, promise, or offer … that is dishonest or misleading.”)
The more I learn about the white man’s influence on this nation, the less I find to admire.
This is sad commentary, to be sure
Until the civil rights era came along when I was about ten, I grew up under the grievously mistaken notion that people of European ancestry brought “civilization” to the backward uncounted millions of non-white people of North, Central, and South America, and that it was our “manifest destiny” (the 19th-century doctrine or belief that the expansion of the US throughout the American continents was both justified and inevitable) to uplift and correct the superstitious notions of Indigenous peoples. (I’m shaking my head in shame and abhorrence as I recall this.)
In a single sound bite, I was brought up being told that we white people did everyone who was living here when Columbus “discovered” the Americas a huge favor as we spread across this continent bringing “right, light and might” to people living in darkness from sea to shining sea…
In westerns, there were good guys and bad guys.The white guys in white hats were the good guys, the white guys in black hats and everyone else were the bad guys. Whoever stood in the way of westward expansion was a bad guy.
The evangelical far right wants us to keep believing these fantasies because it is still exploiting “the least of these”
They don’t want white people learning real history because it might make us feel bad about ourselves and our ancestors. (Ya think?! History isn’t there for us to LIKE.It’s there for us to learn from so we can elect to do better going forward!)
My grandparents arrived on these shores long after it had already been “subdued” by centuries of European settlers (around 1910). Even so, I feel ashamed that so little has been done between the time of their arrival and our times that we are still encountering the same maniacal mindset that was responsible for our earlier record across the centuries. When it comes to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” and justice, the largesse has fallen mostly to rich white men except during brief periods when our federal government has come to the rescue of destitute and marginalized people (during the FDR years and during the civil, women’s, and LGBTQIA+ rights movements).
Rich white men just can’t seem to stop picking on those they consider “the least of us.”
Since leaving school, I’ve read A PEOPLE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES by Howard Zinn, The 1619 Project, slave narratives, Native American narratives, James Baldwin, Maya Angelou, Yes I Can by entertainer Sammy Davis Jr, Killers of the Flower Moon, and literally hundreds of other (truer, non-white-washed) accounts of what white people have done to other human beings, and I’ve watched AMISTAD, AMAZING GRACE, and scores of other history-based motion pictures, and I can see why the far right wants children to keep believing the lie: it’s so damned comforting to think we’re the Great White Hope.
NOPE!
White people (men, primarily) have been a scourge. They’ve denied rights to everyone else for as long as they possibly could, and they’re bent on taking some of them away that people have fought, bled and died to achieve: voting rights, women’s rights, LGBTQIA+ rights. They want their catbird seats back “before it’s too late” to wrest them back. They’ve even gone so far as to try stealing a duly won election in their fevered pursuit to remain top dogs.
I suppose if they had done anything truly valiant or equitable, more people would be on their side. But they haven’t. They’ve marginalized, demonized, and scandalized every segment of the population that doesn’t mirror their mindset, to the detriment of all the rest of us.
WHITE MEN AROUND THE WORLD HAVE BROUGHT US
Genocide
The Holocaust
Religious Zealotry
Unjust wars against non-white populations
Environmental Devastation
Bigotry
Paranoia
Dishonor
Misogny
Racism
Sexism
Xenophobia
Not all white men. Not even the vast majority of white men. But a great many of the white men in power either actively support these pathetic policies, or they look the other way as other white men perpetuate them.
So, I’m real sick of pretending there is no fever in our midst. There is an alarming, elevated fever underway here. Those of us who are “woke” (white, black, brown, Native, etc.) can no longer sit on the sidelines and allow the fever to rise. We need to vote, to stand up, and to say, “The right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness promised by our founding documents is for everybody, not only for those who are rich, white, and artificially empowered by their formerly-exclusionary policies.”
No one in America is free until we all have the same rights, privilges and responsibilities.
This has never been the case (to date) because of who has been sitting in the catbird’s seats and ivory towers until now.
Those of us who don’t have a place at the table are on the menu.
THIS HAS TO STOP NOW!
VOTE BLUE (AT LEAST FOR NOW) IN 2024
Then keep pushing for the elected victors to ensure equitable treatment across the board. No more subsidies or personhood for corporations. No more favors for those already favored. Create a level field so all can rise together and so that those who are incapable of rising (due to disability, illness or some other serious challenge) stop falling through the cracks.
Civilization demands that we be civil to each other. All religions harp on doing to others what we would have done to us. That isn’t happening. It needs to start happening if we’re ever going to make America truly great.
