“I’m not upset that you lied to me; I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe you,” Friedrich Nietzsche explained. No truer words said, I aim to tell the truth and shame the devil on America’s shoulder. Because where exactly are those “better angels”?
For millions of Americans, tis’ the season for turkey and gravy, for families to gather around to share memories and their favorite dishes. A welcomed distraction from our dystopian reality where the current and future presidents shake hands. “Welcome home,” Biden says as if Trump has not promised to separate families, to deport millions of people once he is sworn into office.
A show of hands. Who is surprised? Right.
It is the feigned politeness of whiteness, and it’s still frightening how well they can put on a show for the sake of “law and order.” But what of right and wrong, of justice?
Not now. I know.
You must keep up appearances. Rally a country to unite without the work of reconciliation, without lament and confession, without asking for forgiveness or making reparations but “with liberty and justice” for the oligarchy.
“We’re family. So, sit down at the table and talk to your father, your mother, your sibling. Sit next to your uncle, even if he touched you inappropriately.”
Not now. You know.
“Welcome home.” Smile for the picture that frames us all, sets us up to perpetuate a false reality that we are close, that we love each other.
Then, act surprised when we stop coming to this annual dinner and demonize us for having boundaries and self-respect. Because the dirty uncle has become president. So, don’t ask me ever again why victims of sexual violence don’t tell.
A well-read cynic, I never believed in either party. A registered Independent, I was raised to be independent, to not depend on anybody or expect this country to save everybody.
Instead, I believed my ancestors. James Baldwin said, “I can’t believe what you say, because I see what you do.” Maya Angelou cautioned, “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time. “
At no time in American history have the minoritized been able to play the helpless victim and expect the government to save them. W.E.B DuBois has yet to be proven wrong: “A system cannot fail those it was never meant to protect.” So, I didn’t wait for the election results to come in.
Why wait when Mamie Till never saw justice — even with the aid of the Civil Rights Movement? When African Americans are still being murdered by police officers—with the cameras rolling and even though we now have a name for women racialized as white who weaponize the police against African Americans? The entitled middle-aged, demanding and often racist woman is called Karen.
Why wait when the last surviving victims of the Tulsa Race Massacre won’t receive reparations — even with black and white pictures of the death and destruction? Even after Dick Rowland was exonerated, the African Americans were rebranded as lawless.
Walter White, who was the head of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and had investigated lynchings in the South, said of the destruction at the time, “I am able to state that the Tulsa riot, in sheer brutality and willful destruction of life and property, stands without parallel in America.” More than a hundred years later, nearly all the survivors have died so I won’t hold my breath.
Now, the Justice Department is launching the first federal review. But will it ever get to the root— the hallucination of white supremacy?
Why wait when most African Americans who experienced chattel slavery never received reparations, save the cases of Henrietta Wood and Belinda Sutton? Unironically, their enslavers did, reimbursed for their loss of property and subsequent labor.
This is America’s history. This is its track record regardless of the administration.
False binaries, Americans are reduced to blue and red teams, ballot-boxing for who is more American, more human, and ultimately, the owner of the other’s body. The country continues to capitalize on the “epidermalization of inferiority” and what Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza defines as “relationships of ruling.”
You’ll feel heavier after your second helping of macaroni and cheese so I won’t keep the conversation light. Instead, we’ll continue to have these awkward conversations, this tension at the table.
Because when the country split over chattel slavery, those early Americans did not have an honest conversation with their neighbors and family members who wanted to keep African Americans as property, as tools, as appliances. Instead, they told themselves a story, not unlike this Thanksgiving one.
Because it was about state’s rights, right? Right. You know that’s a lie.
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.
