A Better Country
A model and fuel for injustice
I used to have a friend - a conservative Texan who I served beside in Vietnam - who used to say the only reason that I see racism is because I look for it. Not true. My life would be better for sure if I was less aware of America’s Thing With Race and the harm it does to America. The reason I see so many things that are influenced by race is because here in America so many things are influenced by race.
I find meaning and solidarity in this quote by famed Pulitzer Prize winning author Nikole Hannah-Jones: “I’ve never considered myself a particularly patriotic person. But what I’m arguing is that our founding ideals were great and powerful. Had we in fact built a country based on those founding ideals, then we would have the most amazing country the earth has ever seen.” Jones was the force behind the NYT’s influential and controversial 1619 Project. The 1619 Project is a history of the United States that centers the perennially ignored slavery, Black experience, and contribution to the development of the country. More on the 1619 Project tomorrow.
I’m guessing that Nikole may have given up on our country ever doing as the Reverand Doctor Martin Luther King asked - simply living up to the values the founding fathers wrote down. I’m not particularly patriotic either, despite being a combat Marine with a decoration or two for this and that and a career protecting our federally protected land. But I haven’t given up on America. It’s true that America seems to be able to accomplish anything that it truly gets behind.
I find myself thinking about an opinion piece written by NYT conservative columnist David Brooks several years ago. “I’ve been traveling around the country for the past few years studying America’s divides — urban/rural, red/blue, rich/poor. There’s been a haunting sensation the whole time that is hard to define. It’s that the racial divide doesn’t feel like the other divides. There is a dimension of depth to it that the other divides don’t have. It is more central to the American experience…we can appreciate the truth that while there have been many types of discrimination in our history, the African-American - and the Native American - experiences are unique and different. Theirs are not immigrant experiences but involve a moral injury that simply isn’t there for other groups. …we’re a nation coming apart at the seams, a nation in which each tribe has its own narrative and the narratives are generally resentment narratives. The African-American experience is somehow at the core of this fragmentation — separating Americans from one another and serving as the model and fuel for other injustices.”
Model and fuel for other injustices. I read a lot of newspapers. It’s impossible not to notice the hatred. It’s impossible to not notice the politicians and sometimes celebrities who promote it, celebrities such as country music star Jason Aldean and his hit song Try That In A Small Town that I wrote about back in July. But the hateful rhetoric seems to me to be continually amping up. Peel away a layer and it sure feels race based.
I thought about this and Nikole Hannah Jones’ fraught relationship with the country when I heard Biden’s recent commencement address to Morehouse College - one of the country’s foremost HBCU’s - Historically Black Colleges and Universities; “What does it mean to be a Black American who loves his country even if it doesn’t love you back in equal measure?”
In the past week or ten days I’ve read and thought about U.S. Airman Roger Fortson. Fortson, a Black, active-duty Air Force combat veteran, was at his apartment in Fort Walton Beach, FL, on May 3 when someone began pounding on his door. Not knowing who it might be, Fortson grabbed his handgun - pointing it towards the floor - and opened the door.
The visitor turned out to be an Okaloosa County sheriff’s deputy. “Step back,” the deputy shouted, and then immediately fired his weapon at Fortson, shooting him six times. Only after Fortson lay dying did the deputy remember his training and not his fear of a Black man, “Drop the gun! Drop the gun!”
These facts are not in dispute. They are confirmed by the deputy’s body-camera footage, which was released by Okaloosa County Sheriff Eric Aden.
When George Floyd was murdered by a law enforcement officer four years ago America woke up and got riled up. Yesterday was the first I’d read about this shooting that happened three weeks ago. I guess America and the press got tired of being riled up over race. And where is the NRA’s famous outrage over an American being killed for exercising his Second Amendment Rights?
Part of a law enforcement officer’s training is to shoot only until the threat has been neutralized. Many people survive one or two gunshot wounds. Few survive 6. In 2014 Chicago Police Officer Jason Van Dyke fired 16 rounds into 17 year old Laquan McDonald, armed with a knife and a considerable distance from Van Dyke as he walked away from him at an angle. Van Dyke was eventually found guilty of murder and was sentenced to 7 years in prison. He served three before being released. Laquan remains dead. Was Van Dyke in fear of his life after the 3rd round? The 10th? The 14th? Was Van Dyke that afraid of a Black man? Or did his hatred run that deep?
I took note when Donald Trump, head of the MAGA party, commented in early March about immigrants, presumably brown-skinned: “I don’t know if you can call them people,” “In some cases they’re not people, in my opinion.” Not people?!?
I recall a MAGA Party rally in Palm City Beach Florida with Trump talking about immigrants and asking, “How do you stop these people?” A woman shouted out, “Shoot ‘em!” The MAGA crowd laughed. Trump shrugged. I thought about Trump complaining about having “all these people from shithole countries come here" - singling out Haiti, El Salvador and Africa (which is a continent, not a country, by the way) as examples. "We should have more people from Norway."
A few days ago we all read about Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alioto flying the American flag upside down during a period when the ‘Stop the steal’ folks who had participated in an attack and insurrection on the capitol in support of a hateful president trying to halt America’s long and unchallenged tradition of a peaceful transfer of presidential power. Flying an American flag upside down is disrespectful except as a sign of attack or duress. But the ‘Stop the steal’ crowd had co-opted it as their symbol. There’s no doubt that these same folks who were disrespecting the American flag in support of establishing a White nation are the same folks who threaten to stomp anyone who disrespects the flag by burning it.
The good judge blamed it all on his wife. She was allegedly reacting to a neighbor who had placed a “F*** Trump” yard sign. Maybe. Maybe not. I’ve seen hundreds of “F*** Biden” banners, but I have yet to see a “F*** Trump sign or banner.” Me thinks someone is struggling with his judicial honesty. Although - full disclosure here - there are plenty of F*** Trump flags for sale on Amazon.
But in addition to the concept of a Supreme Court justice supporting those who would advocate for and participate in the violent overthrow of the will of the American people, there’s this: The January 6thinsurrection…it was a racist White thing that Alioto apparently supported. It was the first time ever that the Confederate Battle Flag - America’s unique hate symbol - had ‘flown’ on or in the United States Capitol building, despite the efforts of a mighty army to do exactly that during the Civil War.
Participants in the insurrection have tried to claim it was a diverse, multi-racial event. And I’m sure there were some people of color. Somewhere. But I’ve poured over hundreds of pictures and I’m unable to come up with one.
Jason Van Tatenhove, former longtime spokesperson for the Oath Keepers – a racial hate group tied to the insurrection – described to the January 6 Congressional Committee how he grew concerned as he witnessed an “embrace of straight up racism” within the Oath Keepers and described the insurrection with these words. “This is all about race.”
Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn told lawmakers about an exchange he had with rioters. When Dunn, who is Black, shared with the rioters that he voted for Biden and that his vote should be counted, a crowd began hurling the N-word at him.
“One woman in a pink ‘MAGA’ (Make America Great Again) shirt yelled, ‘You hear that, guys, this n***** voted for Joe Biden!’” said Dunn, who has served more than a dozen years on the Capitol Police force. Then the crowd, perhaps around 20 people, joined in, screaming “F*** the n*****!” Dunn said no one had ever called him the N-word while he was in uniform. That night, he sat in the Capitol Rotunda and wept.
This is the movement a United States Supreme Court Justice is in support of. We should be more than outraged or a little concerned. We should be terrified. When a person tells you who they are, believe them.
In Minnesota last Friday, Trump echoed fascists when he told supporters, "No matter how hateful and corrupt the communists and criminals we are fighting against may be, you must never forget this is not a nation that belongs to them. This is a nation that totally belongs to you. It belongs to you. This is your home, this is your heritage."
He has mimicked the Nazi party when he has talked about immigrants “Poisoning American blood.”
On Monday Trump’s Instagram account posted a video of what a newspaper would look like after a 2024 MAGA win. Under the headline “WHAT’S NEXT FOR AMERICA?” were the words “INDUSTRIAL STRENGTH SIGNIFICANTLY INCREASED DRIVEN BY THE CREATION OF A UNIFIED REICH,” a clear reference to fascism and German dictator Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich.
Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich was a murderess racist party. That is well known. What is less known -because it’s not the sort of thing taught in America’s white-washed version of history is that the Nazi party drew inspiration from studying America’s segregationist Jim Crow laws and customs. The antisemitic Nazi policies that preceded the Holocaust were inspired, in large part, by segregationist laws and ideals from the US. That's one of the most prominent arguments in "The U.S. and the Holocaust," a new documentary directed by famed documentarian Ken Burns. Dwell on that for a moment. The Nazis took inspiration from how America dealt with it’s hatred.
Before I sign off I do want to give a big shout-out to a racial reconciliation effort in the tiny, northern Connecticut town of Granby. You know that concept of ‘Think globally. Act locally’? Some Granby folks on both sides of the political divide saw a local need, came together, and took action. There’s probably a blueprint here for all towns - small or large. More on the Granby Racial Reconciliation project later. But you can get a feel for them here. I caught up with them in CT a few weeks ago and feel like I made some worthy new friends whom I admire.
Anyway, my friend and I parted ways after 50 years not because he voted for a man for president whose views and conduct I detest, but because he bought into and then espoused the candidate’s racist views, lies, and rhetoric. I don’t see the effect race has on this country because I slink around looking for it. My life would feel far better if I never noticed it. The reason I notice it is because it’s everywhere.
Sources:
https://www.businessinsider.com/nazis-studied-us-eugenics-jim-crow-laws-model-policies-2022-9?op=1
https://www.newsweek.com/trumps-full-list-racist-comments-about-immigrants-muslims-and-others-779061
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/05/20/black-airman-shot-police-florida/
Thanks you for what you are doing. What is happening in Grandby needs to happen across the country. On their website they have a very good list of resources for how to think about racism and how to do something about it.