I went through a brief but memorable patriotic phase. I was 10 or 11. We were singing songs at school like America the Beautiful, and I believed in the ideals behind it. I remember feeling a surge of pride in the country that was mine.
But it was, of course, a lie. Because I grew up in a mostly-White community, it was easy for the school system and for society to package the lie and feed it to me over waving flags and apple pie. I wanted to believe it, and so I did. For a long time.
America has long been due for a reckoning.
At least, White America has been due for one. Every person of color in this country has known what many of us are only just now waking up to realize: America was never beautiful or free. It was founded on genocide and built on enslavement. Our history is one of the rich, the powerful, and the White oppressing everyone else. Every small bit of progress was lauded as a huge achievement. And some of us believed it.
I haven’t believed it in a long time, but I feel like I’m coming to terms with it more now than I ever have before. I’m finally accepting that the country I’m seeing splashed all over the news is my country. It’s not an aberration. It’s the ugly underbelly exposed completely to the light. This is who we, as a country, have always been, and if something real doesn’t change, it’s who we always will be.
We’re not re-enacting Nazi Germany. We’re remembering the days of slave catchers and lynchings. When people say “this is not who we are,” we need to remind them of the long history that contradicts this. If we can’t face it, we sure as hell can’t change it.
I have benefited from so much privilege, and I’ll admit that it was a shock to see Renee Good murdered in cold blood. Her whiteness did not protect her, and it will not protect me. This is what true equality looks like. We have to be willing to give up that privilege if we ever want to achieve real and lasting change. We have to align ourselves with danger, knowing it could cost us everything. We have enjoyed privileges. Will we be brave enough to take the risks of the marginalized and cast that privilege aside?
Every harmful system is on full display.
White supremacy. The patriarchy. Capitalism. We’re seeing how they intertwine, and some of us are doing our best to counteract them. We’re becoming more conscious consumers. We’re showing up to protests in record numbers. We’re feeling hopeful and helpless, all at the same time. We’re watching those in power do little while we do much and wondering what it’s going to take for the tide to turn.
I wonder sometimes if we deserve for it to turn. Maybe it should wash us all away. Maybe every single part of the system has to be destroyed to rebuild it anew on equitable principles. Maybe there is no salvaging this country built on violence and oppression.
But this is the only country I’ve got, and I’m not in a financial position to try to relocate my life and family to some other country. This one is mine, and while I am not proud of its past, I am proud of the people who are fighting every day for our future, sometimes making the ultimate sacrifice of their lives in the process. I cannot afford to give up and wish it all to burn to the ground. I have to fight to preserve our rights, and I have to fight equally hard to bring down all the oppressive systems that would rise up and take my rights or anyone else’s.
White America was sold a lie.
We were sold the lie of patriotism, that we have a great past we should honor. But let’s be honest: No one else believed it. Privilege offers protection, and if we weren’t seeing it, we could believe it wasn’t there.
I can’t count how many times the idea of being “color blind” was touted as true evidence that someone was not racist. Not only is this idea weirdly ableist in that some people are actually color blind, but it also perpetuates the idea that seeing everyone the same is the goal. Far from it! We’re supposed to appreciate diversity, but it must be said that many American communities are not diverse. They are thoroughly insulated in communities of sameness. It’s easy to breed fear and hate there.
Until we can look at the cruelty of our history and accept it, we will keep being a part of the problem. We have to see the truth and be willing to deal with the discomfort that comes from knowing our ancestors were likely very bad people indeed. We might not want to believe it, but until we do, we are not ready for real change. We’re just posturing for people to like us, and to be able to live with ourselves.
I don’t know much about my early ancestors, but I know enough to remember casual racism uttered inside my family. It’s not a stretch to think that the racism occurring even further back would have been worse. That’s where I come from. That doesn’t have to be who I am now. But denying the past doesn’t transcend it. It doesn’t erase it. It just buries it until an ancestor comes along brave enough to face it.
We cannot create real and lasting change on the myth of America or on the denial of the many atrocities of the past. We have to be willing to say that this is how it was, and we have to be willing to take a revolutionary view of the future. We’ll have to learn a whole new way of being that doesn’t prioritize whiteness in America.
I’m listening and learning, but that’s not all.
Listening to and learning from indigenous people and Black Americans is not all that I’m tasked to do in this process of opposing fascism. I also have to take action. The idea that I could get shot in the face for doing it is truly terrifying. But equally terrifying is the idea of this country continuing to look the way it looks right now — with a government entity tear-gassing peaceful protestors, kidnapping people off the streets, and murdering us with glee. I can’t just listen and learn. I have to be willing to act.
I’m not going to get quiet and go to ground, although I know many people will. I’m going to get even louder.
I’m not going to isolate myself and keep away from other people. I’m going to build a stronger community.
I’m going to keep listening to the experts here, and none of them are white. I’m going to turn to the indigenous people who have a long history of fighting oppression.
I’m going to listen to people of color, and even when I feel defensive, I will keep my mouth shut so that I can learn from it. I cannot afford to be fragile and sensitive about my whiteness. I can’t help it, but I have certainly benefited from it. Now, I have to deconstruct all the ideas of America and patriotism that were drummed into me. I have to learn a better way of being.
I’m going to teach my children the real truth of this country, and I won’t perpetuate the idea that we were founded on freedom. But I will teach them to fight for the freedoms we have and the ones we deserve to have.
I think back to the younger version of myself singing those songs with pride. I wanted to believe in that idea of America. I wanted, so much, for it to be true. Now, I can be a part of a movement that seeks to make it true, that tries its best to uproot white supremacist, patriarchal, and even capitalist culture in hopes of bringing about a better world. A kinder one. A world rooted in the idea that every human being is entitled to certain inalienable rights. A world that will risk everything to make sure of it.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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Photo credit: Allison Astorga on Unsplash
