The Trump administration is known for its bans on abortion, paper straws, gender-affirming care, words, and books. It’s all piling up, so it’s hard for many Americans to see their way clear. Some are asking, “How did we get here?”
But now the explicit ban on “segregated facilities” has been removed and maybe the American public can finally see white-body supremacy for what it is—anti-communal. White supremacist ideology treats as a threat and preemptively attacks anyone who is not racialized as white, male and heterosexual. If stewing for a fight, a race war, and/or a third World War, this administration’s leaders are trying to push every button to ensure it.
“White rage is not about visible violence, but rather it works its way through the courts, the legislatures, and a range of government bureaucracies,” Carol Anderson wrote in “White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide.” “It wreaks havoc subtly, almost imperceptibly. Too imperceptibly, certainly, for a nation consistently drawn to the spectacular—to what it can see.”
As a part of a month-old memo issued by the U.S. General Services Administration, it only recently caught the attention of media outlets. It is part of Trump’s aim at dismantling diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in the federal and private sector.
It also takes America back to its beginning, and there’s no denying it. It’s a kind of factory reset on the capitalist machinery of chattel slavery: low wages, no healthcare or bodily autonomy.
Though Americans were warned of this, Trump’s racism and misogyny were treated as acceptable flaws in his character. He said every vile and disgusting thing he could think of. So, what more can people who didn’t vote for him say?
While Americans have been socially conditioned to center whiteness and to live under the “white gaze,” African American women have decided to look the other way and declined to save the country from the consequences of his election. The mood is, “Go ahead and ‘make America great.’”
The societal mammification of African American women, which is marked by the expectation of service, aid and comfort, is being rejected. Mammification is “the biased belief that Black women will ‘fix,’ be the caretaker, and be the source of solace and strength,” Kimberly Baker-Flowers wrote. “It perpetuates the stereotype that Black women have a higher tolerance for pain and suffering and that they approach all issues with strength-based stoicism,” she continued.
It is evident in questions like “Where is Kamala Harris?” Though they didn’t vote for her during the last presidential election cycle, she is expected to address the mess of the political contest winner. But I hope she is somewhere sunny with her feet up and laughing loudly.
From what I gauge online and in my group chats, African American women are having a good time, learning new line dances, and returning to old hobbies and life rhythms better suited for their peace of mind. We are slowing down, winding down, staring down the sky. Tired of the juvenility and the unoriginality of white supremacy, we are taking a break, and I cannot say for how long.
But it’s well past time for Americans to wake up to what this country is about and stay woke for this national unlearning regarding African American women. In the meantime, I’m not wasting my breath; Instead, I yawn and stretch before taking the nap my ancestors couldn’t.
Besides, Toni Morrison is always right: “The function, the very serious function of racism is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being.”
“Somebody says you have no language and you spend twenty years proving that you do,” she continued. “Somebody says your head isn’t shaped properly so you have scientists working on the fact that it is. Somebody says you have no art, so you dredge that up.”
“Somebody says you have no kingdoms, so you dredge that up. None of this is necessary,” Morrison argued. “There will always be one more thing.”
But this time African Americans have decided not to do another thing. No protesting, no calls for national conversations on race or demands for social justice. Moreover, after George Floyd’s death, there was only a summer of “racial reckoning.”
Since then, companies have walked back their commitments to equity and cultivating a culture of belonging in the workplace. They eliminated DEI roles and rescinded goals for the representation of underrepresented groups in leadership positions, often ahead of Trump’s disruptive policies.
Corporations are in lockstep because America was never a “melting pot” of immigrants but those who “work(ed) towards whiteness.” This is why segregation is back and America is right back to where it started.
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Director of The Raceless Gospel Initiative, an associate editor, host of the Good Faith Media podcast, “The Raceless Gospel” and author of Take Me to the Water: The Raceless Gospel as Baptismal Pedagogy for a Desegregated Church.
