This is Us… America

I decided to take a little 30-day break from blogging because between traveling more in the last three weeks than all of last year and increased obligations at my day job, I knew I wouldn’t have the time to keep up my blogging schedule. Coming back from my short break, I knew I was going to do a social commentary post because one, it was time. I don’t write them often and I hadn’t written one in a while. In case you haven’t read previous posts, here are a few.

Boycotts, The SuperBowl, Miss Jackson and Justin?

Beauty on Trial

I Can’t NOT Watch

Duped

But mainly I wanted to do a social commentary post because of the current escalated and heightened political and cultural occurrences. Although I grew up in the 60’s and 70’s, one of the most difficult times in American history, this is the first time in my adult life that I really (as the term goes) felt some sort of way about what is happening in this country. I feel angry. I feel helpless. I feel sad. I feel heartbroken. I feel puzzled… well not so much puzzled and I’ll get to that in a moment. I feel angry because I see and hear so many blatant lies being disseminated from these seemingly soul-less people occupying the current administration and Congress. I feel helpless because there is so much evil permeating this country and who am I? I alone don’t know where to start except by way of phone calls, petitions and protests. I feel helpless because there is mountainous corruption and illegalities perpetrated that apparently will go by without penalization or any type of action to force accountability. I feel sad and heartbroken for those who are looking to America for help, escape and freedom to pursue a better life for themselves and their families; for those of us who have lived through horrendous racial moments that we thought were history but is current again. I feel puzzled sometimes until I stop and remind myself of American history. I hate when I hear someone say “This is so un-American”, when everything that is happening right now is very American, beginning with the robbery of this land from Native Americans and subsequent slaughtering of their people. This is us…

It became the time we Americans now celebrate as Thanksgiving. So who is the real illegal immigrant? Yep. Everything you learned in grade school about the “Indians” and the “Settlers” was FALSE. But that’s a whole other blog post in and of itself. Then there was the abduction of an entire race of people, treating them as animals, raping their wives and their husbands while forcing their spouses to watch, tearing apart their families. That part, the tearing families apart… sound familiar?

Forcing them to provide the free labor that made this country rich, leading to a war that was fought and lost to protect it their economic rise. Yep. Most everything you learned in grade school about slavery was FALSE. But again, that’s for another blog post. The blatant criminalization of that same race of people, justifying the all too many lynchings, and oppression at the highest levels of which you, and frankly, nor I, could ever imagine.

This justification was memorialized in the classic original film, Birth of A Nation, that perpetuated the ages-old stereotypical beliefs that people of color were/are vandals, murderers, thieves and rapists. Note: Real fake news existed long before 45 started spewing it. The terms “law and order” and “three strikes,” are all means towards the lawful and justified criminalization of people of color, possibly for the purpose of free labor, so we can get back to the good ole days of that economic rise, further widening the disparity of wealth in this country, making America great again. This story was re-told in the 2016 version of Birth of A Nation.

This version told a bit more about what was really going on in those times, but unfortunately was not as widely viewed due to an oddly coincidental news story about the film’s director and producer. I will spare you the details as that too, is yet another blog post in and of itself.

So back to how I’m reminded that we as a country have been “here” before… The forced incarceration of Japanese, more than half of which were Japanese-AMERICAN citizens, to internment camps, said to have been a means to eliminate security risks after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

Somewhere between 110,000 and 120,000 Japanese people on the West Coast were forced into camps as prisoners for no other reason than their ethnicity for four years. (Deep sigh….) I’m sure there are more incidences that show just how American these current attrocities are, but fast-forwarding to today… living in this America with a President so obviously uninformed, unintelligent, indecent, inhumane, crass, racist and a debasement to the highest office of the land, who constantly demeans his predecessor while at the same time takes credit for his work; an administration that seeks to undermine the work of the previous President at every turn simply because he was Black, regardless of the consequences to even their own constituents; investigations into such deep corruption, collusion and cover-ups you can’t even keep up with, and the seemingly breaking down of honor, respect and plain old doing what’s right; the robbery of 44’s elected right to select a replacement supreme court justice for no reason at all other than… I’ll just let you figure that one out on your own. And then there is the soul-less decision and process of abducting children as young as 3 months old from their parents, intentionally with no way to re-unite them as a scare tactic to keep them from coming here; even those seeking asylum as allowed by law.

To hear the unfathomable pain in some of the mothers voices, and to see it in their faces; to hear the chorus of cries of children who don’t understand what is happening to them, forever scarred by the actions of the land of the free and the home of the brave, a place that was supposed to provide something better than what they left, is beyond gut-wrenchingly heart-breaking.

Let’s not forget the on-going murders of Black people by the police for the high crimes of… returning home from the store having bought skittles and a soda, walking down the street, properly and respectfully informing an officer that you’re a registered gun owner, talking on your cell phone in your grandparent’s backyard, asking an officer why you’ve been pulled over, for being 12 years old and playing with a toy gun in a park, sitting in a wheelchair, purchasing a toy gun in a Walmart, or some misdemeanor. And the senseless arrests and/or treatment of Black people for conducting threatening acts like… asking to speak to the manager, sitting in a Starbucks, sleeping in the common area of your college dorm, delivering the newspaper, cutting the lawn, and just driving. I understand the ignorance of racism behind why the police are called, but I draw a blank as to why once law enforcement arrives on the scene and the situation is assessed, that there is any further action taken. I can honestly say at this very moment in time, that I am glad I don’t have children. I can’t imagine bearing this kind of worry and concern day-in and day-out for the life of my child as he/she simply lives.

Abduction, trafficking, smuggling, theft, lying, murder, rape, inhumanity, cruelty, all under the guise of Christianity… All of this, sadly, is America.  I sometimes ponder what this all means for my future and the future of my family?

So I can’t just leave it there. I remember I am a child of God so there is a light at the end of the tunnel and there is good news. And it’s what I default too when the news gets too stressful and the realities of this illegitimate nightmare appear to be overwhelming. I remember that I am a child of God, and that He in His omniscience knew that we’d meet this day, and He is not a God that would leave us high and dry. He says ‘He will never leave us nor forsake us’, Hebrews 13:5. I can’t afford not to have faith during these times. All of us who want to live in a truly democratic state, where moral decency and respect lead the way to governance, have to have faith. When you’ve done all you can to fight; the calling and emailing your representatives and Senators, the protesting and going to the polls to vote, you have to trust that God has us in the palm of His hands, and that Romans 8:28 is true, that “all things work together for good to those who love the Lord and are called according to His purpose.”