You Don't Know American History
And that's why you won't write America's future.
Black people do not have the luxury of ignoring reality in their politics. For the short period of time that we’ve had the right to vote, the overwhelming majority of the choices involved holding our nose and selecting the lesser of two evils. You see, Black people understand the importance of mitigating damage, because damage is the world we live in. Unfortunately the lesser of two evils lost. We don’t need to keep re-litigating it.
I’ve been really angry lately. There are plenty of reasons for this. From the year being immediately tarnished by historic wildfires across LA, to the inauguration, to the very loud rolling back of diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, to planes crashing and falling out of the sky while concentration camps are being built in Guantanamo, to the biggest fucking loser ass bitch from South Africa employing ugly dork ass kids to steal our money and data, to having to endlessly remind well-meaning leftists that we actually can’t win anything if we can’t work together.
It’s too much, but for the sake of my own sanity (and the dozens of drafts I’ve tried and failed to write about this), I’m going to stick to the vilification of Black people and the immediate consequences it’s having across our government:
Ever since the absolutely horrifying and devastating helicopter crash that slammed into a commercial flight landing at DCA last week, the damage of dropping DEI has come into clear view. Wanna know how I know? I’m in my hometown Facebook “Boone County Neighbors” group—a group that is overwhelmingly white and conservative. I rarely post, but I listen. And leading up to the inauguration and through the announcements of ICE raids these morally bankrupt individuals have celebrated. Since that crash, however, things have been eerily silent.
There are probably a LOT of reasons for this, but not the least of which being the insane and stupid scapegoating of Black people who weren’t present on the helicopter, in the cockpit of the plane, or in the air traffic control tower. And beyond it being an obvious lie, I think people with the slightest bit of decency were taken aback by the craven rush to blame someone before the recovery efforts even began. It’s classless, it doesn’t make them look like good people for shouting about their support for this guy.
But what’s worse is that since Elon bullied out the FAA chief on inauguration day (seemingly for investigating SpaceX’s predilection for exploding debris across Texas and the Caribbean every single mission), plane crashes are on the rise. The Philly crash, hell, even today AS I TYPE, a Japan Airlines flight clipped a Delta flight on the ground in Seattle.
Trump claimed he eradicated diversity from the FAA in an executive order on January 22nd. He then appointed a guy from reality tv to head of the transportation agency and an alcoholic FOX News host to head of the military.
So maybe Black people are, frankly, the reason planes used to make it to their destination without incident. If they can spew conspiracies, so can we.
It’s Black History Month, and while the Grammys and Super Bowl halftime show no doubt show the beauty of diversity, it’s not lost on me that we are in a major moment of backlash. That the “end racism” emblem in both end zones will be painted over in anticipation of Trump’s attendance speaks volumes. The NFL can’t even symbolically disagree with racism out of fear of backlash.
We are quickly QUICKLY backsliding into the Jim Crow era. And Americans fighting online today have no actual education on what that time was like. Most seem to think MLK peacefully marched and then died for their sins and racism was dead from that day forward. But they don’t know that Jim Crow was so insidious that it had Hitler taking notes. They don’t know that most marginalized people in the US have African Americans’ sacrifices to thank for their presence (and that includes Irish and Italian white people too). They don’t get that segregating the schools hurts ALL Americans (listen to Rebel Spirit!!!!), and that’s what the intention is behind dissolving the Department of Education. They don’t know their history, and if they don’t learn it QUICKLY, they are doomed to repeat it. Dare I say Americans today aren’t tough enough to survive it this time.
A
PS: I’m going to move my substack to another provider because the owners of this site align with Elon Musk and I can’t bother with that. For paid subscribers (ILY), nothing will change for subscriptions, I will make sure it all ports over normally and you’ll still get these emails.
I hope I can find where you are going.
thank you so much for doing the hard work that will let us say goodbye to substack.
the scale of what these two weeks will do to people even just in Michigan is too vast for my mind to grasp. i walk around stewing in my rage about the absolute racism of it and how i can be ready when the time comes to actually put myself on the line. when i read what you say it makes me feel part of something powerful.