The Heavy Stone on America's Back

“What it does mean, as we’ve seen, is that simplistic scenarios of good against evil encourage people to interpret conflict as non-negotiable.” Elaine Pagels

Independence Day. 4th of July, a hallowed day in American history, birthday of the nation that one day would refer to itself as indispensable. The white men who agitated to sever the ties with Great Britain and its King, our Founding Fathers, declared their independence and took up arms to make it so. They were the elites of the colony, property owners -- including human property -- African slaves who served as both labor and capital. Despite the high-blown rhetoric about liberty, the founders would fight tooth and nail for decades to maintain a lucrative trade in African people, buying and selling, exploiting their labor to raise tobacco and cotton, to drain swamps and clear forests, build cities. 

The American myth is messy, laced with inconvenient truths. George Washington was a land speculator and a slave owner; Thomas Jefferson fathered children with a slave woman; Abraham Lincoln believed that Africans should be repatriated to Africa; J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI hounded Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Race has always been the heavy stone on America’s back; white supremacy has been a feature of America since the very beginning, though we are indoctrinated to believe otherwise. 

Until Trump rode the escalator down from his lair and declared that he, and he alone, had solutions to all the problems and weaknesses caused by his predecessor, the first black president, Barack Obama, white supremacy occupied the fringes and moved in and out of the shadows. Trump tossed the reliable dog whistle aside in favor of a megaphone, and made clear whose side he was on, the aggrieved white working class preyed upon, or ignored by, the black president and his liberal followers. Brown and black people got all the advantages, free food, housing, medical care, all sorts of bounty, while poor whites suffered in silence, lost their grip on the social ladder. Trump’s megaphone was loud, insistent, he knew where to lay the blame and on who.

Myths are powerful. Forcefully repeated lies assume the outline of truth. A few thousand unarmed Central American migrants becomes an invasion, an immigration problem becomes a full-blown border crisis. Our flag waves, God Bless America is sung, and we assume that we are what we have been taught, a shining democracy, envy of the entire world, a force for all that is decent and good and just and righteous. 

Army tanks rumbling through Washington D.C. are the perfect symbol of America at this moment, when the American grip on the planet is slipping, when the vestiges of democracy are faltering, when the benevolent face of America is exposed for what it is, a mask, a disguise. When Uncle Sam extends his hand it is covered in blood. Iraq, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, Libya, Syria, Yemen. Uncle Sam’s bloody hand reaches for the throat of Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden. Uncle Sam’s bloody hands tear an infant from his terrified mother. Uncle Sam snarls, threatens, blusters, bullies. Once Uncle Sam declared War on Poverty, now he wages war on the poor, he puts children in cages, holds prisoners indefinitely, punishes the victims. 

Myths die hard, but they do die.