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Two years into a once-in-a-lifetime global pandemic, America now stands shakily at a serious crossroad. Much is at stake. American democracy itself is in jeopardy. Will white “supremacy” bring America to a fiery end?
Though this may seem crazy, it is a possibility we must all consider given the rising ultra-right-wing fanaticism we are witnessing from deranged white folk.
These threats to domestic democratic peace are coming from conservative crackpot corners of America that are descending into mental madness with the now emerging America that is becoming less white.
The dangers we face now from these violent gun-toting citizens should not be taken lightly.
Trump’s Jan. 6th coup attempt was a clear example of the white anger many have about the changing darkening demographics of the country. Those indoctrinated by the false concept of superiority based on white skin are petrified by the change they are seeing. How did pale melanin deficient skin ever become the symbol of superiority in the first place?
Donald Trump was given power by Republican voting conservatives because he was seen as a white hope savior, who would come to the rescue—like John Wayne riding high in the saddle—to take America back to the days of white nostalgia where Blacks, and all non-white others were kept in their damn place. They want to take the country back to the time of in God we (whites) trust, with darkies again at the back of the bus!
The violence unleashed by Trump’s MAGA mob terrorists on Jan. 6th may very well be only a prelude of worse things to come. This faction of white America would rather burn the country down than see it morph into a truly equal multi-racial nation.
Trump, like other Republicans, understood the level of hateful pigmentation panic that infects this segment of white right-wing America that votes Republican. Therefore, stroking division is a frequent diversionary tactic of Trump and Republican politicians. The so-called “culture wars” are frequently inflamed by conservative commentators and media outlets along with the political opportunists in the GOP.
One of the go-to red-meat topics that creates a feeding frenzy for rabid right-wing conservatives these days is the controversy revolving around critical race theory.
Last week, for example, during the Senate confirmation hearings, among the jack-assery (echoing the term Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse used to describe some of his Republican colleagues) was Ted Cruz’s pointed attacks on the written works of Dr. Ibram Kendi. Cancun Cruz deployed the critical race theory bogeyman here to insinuate that Judge Jackson was a proponent of it.
Of course, these right-wing rednecks who are hyperventilating in hateful hysteria, about critical race theory, are really just screaming for the censorship of those things that they see as an attack on their privileged whiteness. So now, they want to whitewash (as their kind always has) away those parts of American history that documents the racial injustices that underpins the foundations of the American story.
In many red GOP-controlled states, teachers are now being thought-policed and told what books are unacceptable for them to use in the classroom. Teachers now face the extra burden of having to worry about losing their jobs if they dare stray from the censored curriculum of white red-state indoctrination.
This week also saw the disinvite of former Black Panther, Jalil Muntaqim, from SUNY Brockport in upstate New York. Muntaqim was released in June 2020 from prison after 49 years (and during the height of the COVID crisis) following his conviction for allegedly killing NYPD police officers Waverly Jones and Joseph A. Piagentini in 1971.
Many police apologist “Back the Blue” types, who routinely excuse the genocidal habitual killings and murders of Black people by police, pressured the SUNY Brockport administration into allowing only a virtual speaking presentation, from the original commitment of an in-person presentation. Students at the university protested the decision.
Of course, Muntaqim is the kind of voice that should be heard today—especially as it relates to racist police violence against Black America. Because of the ubiquity of cellphone technology, more Americans in the last few years have been forced to accept the fact that the institution of American policing routinely abuses and kills Blacks. But African-Americans, particularly like Muntaqim, have long known the deep bloody extent of American police terrorism.
The Black Panthers were targeted by American policing, and J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI. Hoover said, “the Black Panther Party, without question, represents the greatest threat to internal security of the country.” A war was then launched against the Panthers by the FBI and police to “neutralize” and murder members of the Black Panther Party. Chicago Panther leader Fred Hampton was killed while he was still sleeping—after being drugged some hours before by Black Judas police informant William O’Neal.
This is part of the historical record that the right-wingnut conservatives screaming critical race theory today has never been able to honestly deal with on any day. And it explains why they are trying to silence those, like Muntaqim, who can bear witness to these abuses against African-Americans that have been state-sanctioned by the white power structure.
These attempts to silence certain voices and to censor certain books have even made their way into supposedly progressive states.
Here, in New York, the New York Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit, last week, against the New York State Department of Corrections over their censorship of the book “Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising and Its Legacy.” Although, the book is available in prisons in other parts of the country, prison officials have apparently outlawed its reading inside New York prisons.
America needs a national truth and reconciliation discussion if we are to ever heal the wounds of racial injustice. But violent white supremacy remains a clear and present danger to that conversation—and to American democracy itself.
