As long as America, and Americans are brainwashed into believing America is absolutely great and absolutely exceptional, it can never start fresh and move forward.
From a country built on chattel slavery, genocide, and white supremacy, it has, at times, sought to repair itself.
But, the country needs something bolder now. Something that will set a new path. Something that will symbolize flushing of that history that divides the nation.
America needs a Godzilla.
“Godzilla,” to the Japanese people, represents their fall and then their rise. Godzilla is nuclear destruction. The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The total annihilation of their country as they knew it.
Japan was a proud and powerful imperial nation at the time. It roughed off a lot of other nations. It had aspirations to be a world empire.
Then, it was knocked into oblivion. Two of its cities were laid to waste. The U.S. became the world’s global empire and it has remained mostly that way since those days in August 1945.
Eventually, Japan recovered and became a different society. “Godzilla” was a big part of that. Here’s how writer, Kimmy Yam described it in an article she wrote after the release of another Godzilla film in 2019 (there have been 19 Godzilla films):
“For many Japanese viewers, seeing the movie was a cathartic, validating experience…People were able to witness Tokyo being destroyed once more while seeing radiation given the physical form of a monster. The ending, while bittersweet, is a hopeful one in which humanity triumphs over evil.”
The point is Japan has sought to become new by putting the past in the rearview. Japan faced it and the country’s fall through Godzilla. Japan had been humbled. But the country used that moment eventually to reject nuclear annihilation and war to embrace the idea of humanity and peace.
Japan is not perfect and is not an imperial power but it is a country of accomplishment economically and culturally. And it is not about the past either; it is about what they have done in the now.
The U.S. might one day come to such a crossroad. Maybe 9/11 was that crossroad. The country seemingly has not put that moment in its rearview yet. Over 3000 Americans died that day and countless more died after that day to fight wars to make America feel safe again (but it is not really safe).
This is because 9/11 caused America’s leadership to fly off the deep end and waste trillions of dollars on two useless wars. America didn’t invest in America; it invested in empire again.
Important things such as infrastructure and education at home are still being neglected and treated as commodities. Americans across the country need work and training of real substance. Americans want and need health care. America wants to continue to be an empire and dominate the planet. It is not a smart plan for the long term.
On top of all of this, American racism/white supremacy needs to be resolved with restitution and restorative justice to make all of its citizens feel whole. It just hangs around the country like a ball and chain on a prisoner.
Bitterness and division exudes from our communities. People try to forget what happened to their ancestors but it is hard. Too hard. The evil that was done for money is unfathomable. Other Americans have no idea how to process this history.
People were slaughtered for profit. Millions died because of America’s slave trade and its Jim Crow laws and mentality.
America needs its own Godzilla.
Something that will once and for all symbolize the country’s firm break with racism, bigotry, and militarism. Something that will concede a new beginning that is more rooted in peace and unity as human beings in America. There is potential for that here.
This all sounds corny. But being an empire is not so important anymore. It is too costly to try to run the planet and control everything everywhere. It will always call for the U.S. to kill people anywhere and anytime.
Delaying a resolution to the question of white supremacy is also more important than being a global empire. White supremacy will never die but its power over the minds of people must die or be rendered irrelevant.
I am waiting on America’s Godzilla. Something to save the country from its past. Many thought it was the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Yea, but anyway.
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This post was previously published on briangilmore.medium.com
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