5 August 2019, New Jersey, USA
I mean, America is not unique in its sins as a country. We are not unique in our evils, to be honest with you. I think where we may be singular, is in our refusal to acknowledge them, and the legends and myths we tell about our inherent goodness, to hide and cover and conceal so that we can maintain a kinda wilful ignorance that protects our innocence.
See the thing is when the tea party was happening, we were saying, pundits, ‘oh, it’s just about economic populism, it’s not about race’.
When people knew, people knew, social scientists were already writing that what was driving the tea party were anxieties about demographic shifts, that the country was changing, that they were seeing these racially ambiguous babies on Cheerios commercials. That the country wasn’t quite feeling like it was a white nation anymore.
People were screaming, from the top of their lungs, ‘this is not just economic popularism. This is the ugly underbelly of the country.’
See the thing is is this. And I’ll say this, and I’ll take the hit on it.
There are communities that have had to bear the brunt of America confronting, white America confronting the danger of their innocence. And it happens every generation., So somehow we have to … ‘oh my god, is this who we are?’
And just again, here is another generation of babies. Think about it, a two-year-old, had his bones broken by two parents trying to shield him from being killed. A woman, who has been married to this man, for as long as I’ve been on the planet almost, lost her husband … for what!
And so what we know is the country has been playing politics for a long time on this hatred, we know this.
So it’s easy for us to place it all on Donald Trump’s shoulders, it’s easy for us to place Pittsburgh on his shoulders, it’s easy for me to place Charlottesville on his shoulders, it’s easy for us to place El Paso on his shoulders, this is us!
And if we are going to get past this, we can’t blame it on him. He’s a manifestation of the ugliness that’s in us.
I’ve had the privilege of growing up in a tradition that didn’t believe in the myths and the legends because we had to bear the brunt of them.
Either we are going to change Nicole, or we are going to do this again, and again, and again, and babies are going to have to grow up without mothers, and fathers, uncles and aunts, friends – while we are trying to finally convince white folk to leave behind a history that will maybe, maybe … or embrace a history … that might set them free. From being white. Finally.