Bear in mind that I'm an immigrant
so my perspective is different. I'm not wedded to any of the notions of
American greatness and exceptionalism that native-born sons and daughters
are, and it's therefore far easier for me to look dispassionately at the
history of this Great Country*.
I come from a formerly colonized
nation, so questioning the colonizer is what I do. Forgive me.
The root of American - and European
- greatness needs to be questioned and looked at with a clear, unflinching
gaze. I've said this before, and will likely say it again, only the truth will
set us free. So the question has to be asked: when was America great? Give me a
date. How did she get great? What war did she win? What new territory did she
conquer? How did her greatness come to be?
As far as I can tell, the America
of the founders' imagination is a fabulous idea but betwist idea and implementation, is a long road
of death, destruction and damnably persistent exploitation. Are we there yet,
at implementation I mean? Are we at the full implementation of the founders'
idea: equality, liberty and the right to pursue one's happiness? And if we
aren't, what will it take to get there? And, given that there are folks who are
constitutional originalists among us, do we even know where 'there' is any
more? Seems to me that to a constitutional originalist like Clarence Thomas,
'there' might be a place where his learning to read was against the law. Just
sayin'.
Based on what I've seen and heard,
America was great when the Native Americans were walking the Trail of Tears courtesy Andrew
Jackson's Indian Removal policy. Indian Removal: great for America, not so much
for the Native Americans.
When
America was great, the slaves were arriving in Jamestown in 1619. Slavery: great for
America, not so much for the slaves.
When
America was great, newly emancipated slaves were being forced back into sharecropping and de
facto (version two) slavery. Only the stories
of the sharecroppers can give a real sense of how exploitative these
conditions actually were. History books tend to lay the continuing poverty of
sharecroppers at the feet of the vagaries weather and crop yields, but in many
cases there was far more to it than that. Sharecropping: great for America, not
so much for the sharecroppers.
When America was great, domestic
terrorism was a thing keeping newly freed people
of color from getting too big for their britches. Lynching: great for America,
not so much for the n*ggers.
When America was great, Black
people could be used for medical experimentation. Medical
research and advancement: great for America, not so much for the guinea pigs
(aka Black human beings).
When America was great,
discrimination in lending and home sales was OK; unequal resourcing to schools
was OK; disparate treatment in any and every sphere of life was OK;
discriminating against persons on the grounds of the race, religion, gender,
sexual orientation or gender expression was OK; and using disparaging language
as we spoke to and about each other was perfectly acceptable. Discrimination:
great for America, not so much for those being discriminated against. So I
ask again: when exactly was America great? Or perhaps the real question to be
asked is, for whom was this great America great? And in
our quest to regain this apparently lost greatness, who are we going to put in
a box, because clearly, someone's gotta be the guinea pig, the sharecropper,
the slave, the n*gger. Who's it gonna be? I'm not volunteering. I guess that
leaves you? Oh wait, not you either? Hm. We seem to be running out of
candidates.
We have long confused the ideas of greatness and prosperity.
The two words are not synonyms, not even close.
Belgium is wealthy, but that wealth
is built on the bones of millions of Africans in the Congo who were brutalized
for rubber, which makes a response to the events in Brussels complicated.
We repudiate the violence but we must also be mindful of the history. Does
wealth make Belgium 'great'? If so, then surely the source of that wealth makes
Belgium something far less than great? Great Britain is also wealthy but that
wealth came at the expense of both the East and the West Indies, the
Triangular Trade, colonization and its attendant brutalities. Great Britain was
made wealthy through the stripping of people from their culture and stripping
of culture from its people. That certainly made her wealthy, but great?
America is wealthy. The Founders'
idea is a great one. The Bill of Rights is fantastic, but even as that was
being crafted, Thomas Jefferson was exploring/exploiting some kind of connubial
relationship with Sally Hemmings and George Washington and several others were slaveholders.
They were tacitly, if not actively, supporting the rape and torture of the
female slaves on their plantations and while ain't nobody ever talk about it,
I'm pretty sure some of the male slaves were being raped as well. Was the
slave-owning version of America great? What about the Trail of Tears and Native
American genocide version? Was that one great? How about the current version of
America, where unarmed people of color too often do not survive even the
simplest encounters with agents of the state? How great is that?
Perhaps rather than toss the word great around
we need to figure out what greatness looks like and then hold America
up against that standard and see where we come out? Before we talk about making
America great again, let's do the gap analysis, see how it comes out and then
get to working on closing the gap because I'm not feeling the 'again' bit. The
first time around wasn't so good for my people.
If you want me to sign on, let's
talk about finally making America great; finally realizing the promise of the
founders’ vision. I could get on board that train. The Trump train? Not so much.
* Don't you
feel like the words Great Nation should always be capitalized
or bolded, the way folk say it? I do.
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