American Lies
We have to stop talking about race
Ana Kasparian, of the Young Turks, said she doesn’t want to spend her life and career harping on race.
From @_TreyJWS on threads but from her podcast.
Well, Ana. We’ve tried not talking about race and look where it’s gotten us. Welcome back to American Lies. And this one is for liberal white America - it’s racist to talk about race.
I’m going to argue just the opposite. Pretending like issues do not exist, is why we are in the position we are in today. And it is, in fact, more racist to not talk about race!
She goes on to say that socio economic factors are more important than race, but what I’ve learned in the last few years, relearning US History is that race is the core of our issues. Currently, we have a longer wealth disparity than any other time in history. More than the Gilded Age, more than the French Revolution, and I know that it is race that divides us (the non-billionaires) or we’d be revolting already.
Being that this is a series directed at white folks, I want to give you this thought experiment to understand the United States a bit more.
Lean in, we’re getting uncomfy and that’s okay, it’s where we grow.
Do you remember that family? That white family, maybe they lived on your street. Maybe they went to your church. They were PICTURE PERFECT. Two or three kids. All popular, all happy, mom and dad were married, decently big house. Cute as hell. Church on Sundays, volunteered, mom hosted events, dad had some big job. Kids got cars on their 16th birthdays. They excelled at everything.
Then you got to know the kids.
A little better at first, but you got to go over to their house.
Once you were in the house, the cracks started to show. Mom leaned on the wine too much. The sisters flinched around the brother. Everyone flinched when someone raised a hand or got too land. The dad - never around actually. This family was only good from afar, but upon closer inspection something was deeply wrong.
But nobody talked about it. Nobody talked about anything, really. The dinners you sat through as an interloper were cordial at best, but strained. And as you got to know the kids better, you saw everything. The pain, the heartbreak, the abuse. And the cover up. Because no one at church was to know. No one could know how they were treated, and frankly, it was impolite to discuss such things.
That to me, is the United States to a tee. We pretend like everything is just fine here (everyone else knows it at this point, it’s just white folks acquiescing to the illusion now). The illusion was well maintained through the majority of the 20th century because of a lack of camera phones and social media. But, presently, the more we learn about our own country, our history, we are forced to confront the abuse, the pain, the families ripped apart.
And not talking about it, has led us to where we are today. Not talking about race and racism doesn’t make it go away. We’ve shoved everything so far under the rug, our house is about to break.
Our country’s roots of white supremacy and genocide are so deep it’s ripping us apart. The only way out of it is through it. Having real conversations and making real strides to repair a fractured nation.
And when white folks argue that not everything in this country is about race, it’s denying over four hundred years of history. It’s not just a cop out, it’s harming the future of our country and the world.
The way out of this, is reparations and land back programs. In my estimation, it’s a new constitution based on inclusion. Because we’re looping. The Supreme Court in 2026, under Chief Justice John Roberts, a mere two weeks ago, put the final nail in the coffin of the Voting Rights Act. But why do we need the Voting Rights Act? Because we have the 14th and 15th Amendments. Those amendments enshrine voting rights for Black men and citizenship.
ANOTHER FUCKING SUPREME COURT GUTTED THE 14TH AND 15TH AMENDMENTS. Chief Justice Melville Fuller, in a 7-1 opinion, legitimized Jim Crow, ushering in seventy plus years of legal segregation with Plessy v Ferguson. Yes, you can argue it was only fifty because of the Brown V Board of Education ruling, but fuck out of here with that. George Wallace was preaching, “Segregation Now, Segregation Tomorrow, Segregation Forever,” in 1963. We know it truly ended in the 60s with the Civil Rights Acts, including the Voting Rights Act. Even so, many states, schools, and public places resisted integration. Ole Miss didn’t integrate their football team until 1971.
Justice John Marshall Harlan, a Kentuckian, wrote the dissent for Plessy V Ferguson and was vindicated decades later, while Justice David J. Brewer abstained.
Justice John Marshall Harlan’s lone dissent, would dub him the Great Dissenter. But what that 1896 ruling ushered in, wasn’t just “separate, but equal,” it was a two tiered citizenry. Less than thirty years after enfranchisement, Black Americans became second class citizens, and while Jim Crow is a decently flowery way to say it -it was authoritarianism. Plain and simple. If it was another country, we would call it just that. But it’s our own history, so we just simply call it a mistake. We know for a fact that at least fifty towns were destroyed during this authoritarian regime, but it’s likely well over 100.
The summer of 1919 alone, thirty-six cities saw portions or all of it razed to the ground. All because Black American GIs came home from World War I, and realized just how different they were treated in Europe. There were racial expulsions before the war as well, and famously afterwards, with Rosewood and Greenwood.
And we see this continue through the forties, fifties, and sixties, with the taking of Black neighborhoods while big highway lobbies in DC for our car centric life we live today. We see segregation enforced and CREATED in towns that didn’t have it with HUD and housing projects built all over this country.
We MUST confront the sins of our past. And that starts by talking about race. While reading one of my favorite and most heartwrenching books I’ve read so far in my journey to relearn US History, Like Judgement Day, by Mike D’Orso, I learned that a swath of American leaders believe (or believed at least in the 90s) that reparations weren’t needed because slavery was “legal at the time.”
What a fucking convenient argument, huh?
Legality and morality are not synonymous. And they haven’t been over the course of human history. We know this. And despite the legality of the both the practice of slavery, and the slave trade - Thomas Jefferson wrote this in 1788. A reply to Brissot de Warville:
“I am very sensible of the honour you propose to me of becoming a member of the society for the abolition of the slave trade. You know that nobody wishes more ardently to see an abolition not only of the trade but of the condition of slavery: and certainly nobody will be more willing to encounter every sacrifice for that object. But the influence and information of the friends to this proposition in France will be far above the need of my association. I am here as a public servant; and those whom I serve having never yet been able to give their voice against this practice, it is decent for me to avoid too public a demonstration of my wishes to see it abolished. Without serving the cause here, it might render me less able to serve it beyond the water. I trust you will be sensible of the prudence of those motives therefore which govern my conduct on this occasion, and be assured of my wishes for the success of your undertaking and the sentiments of esteem and respect with which I have the honour to be Sir your most obedt. humble servt.,
Th: Jefferson
So, please, for the love of GOD, spare me. Big TOMMY J, Thomas Jefferson wrote this and admitted that he knew it was bad, played the public servant card and then fucked off back to Monticello to sexually assault Sally Hemmings and live in a house that was basically a smart house without any tech. Just enslaved people making this magically appear.
We can pretend that race in this country doesn’t matter, but it won’t get us anywhere. The poor will continue to get fucked, while the uber wealthy, get wealthier off of our backs.
This has been the plan, the design from the beginning. Keep poor whites and poor Blacks separate as a means to control. Nothing in our United States History was an accident. And when we decide we’re not going to talk about race, WE FALL RIGHT INTO THEIR HANDS.
The minority that wants to keep minority rule. They NEED IT. If we continue to be at each other’s necks we won’t be at theirs.
If you’re a white person today and you’re wondering “What can I do to change this?” It starts inside of you. Understanding your own internal biases, and then you expand to your family, and your community.
If you’re a user of social media (and I know you are), diversify that For You Page today. Begin engaging with Black activists and Brown activists and organizers across the country. We don’t need to reinvent the wheel, but we must break this loop. And we’re the ones to do it.
If you’re desperate for more of me. Find me on YouTube, or over at The Foolish Optimist Podcast.