America's Most Recent Unmasking
Lately I've been reminded of this feeling I had while my car spun out of control on the NJ turnpike a few years ago. Although it was probably only a few seconds of time, it felt slow, watching the landscape outside of the car pass by, knowing the car was not facing the right way and I had no way of correcting it. It was this suspension of belief in what is happening right now.
Of course, this metaphor for our current state of affairs is flawed. Charlottesville, now another hashtag and rallying point for solidarity, did not come out of nowhere, and I wonder where it will lead us. Where did Charleston and Aurora and Orlando and so many other places lead us?
Small steps you may say. But I am tired and wary of America's unending appetite for spectacle and violence. We pass by these calls for national introspection and soul-searching with barely a pause in the 24-hour news cycle. Or so it seems. We long for a kind of static innocence, but fail to see how we've been maintaining an insidious and predatory one in order to view the United States as exceptionally and unequivocally free and just.
I am grateful for the many privileges that growing up in the U.S. has afforded me. It is no small thing to live in a country where you can express your views openly. But I am actually quite thankful for not having one particular privilege, which is a feeling of belonging here. I am always the foreigner. You can't befriend, marry or birth that away. This is a truth of my American story, and I am grateful for the painful lens it gives me to look through the world.
America was built by men who didn't believe in my humanity or worth, or in the humanity or worth of those who were already inhabiting the land, or in the humanity or worth of those they stole to work the land. It took centuries of people insisting that people were people with intrinsic value in order for us to get to where we are today. Which is a place where someone like me STILL feels like they don't belong in the most ordinary and mundane ways.
Does this mean that these white terrorists in Charlottesville and elsewhere win? Or that love doesn't prevail and what not?
No. It means the work is not done, was not close to being done, and you need to be doing it now. Those Nazi bros are congratulating themselves, and the White House and significant portions of the American citizenry don't really care. Our Founding Fathers put into place a system of checks and balances to prevent a tyrannical government, but the power of America has always resided in people laying claim to America's promise in spite of this country's white male supremacy.
Of course, this metaphor for our current state of affairs is flawed. Charlottesville, now another hashtag and rallying point for solidarity, did not come out of nowhere, and I wonder where it will lead us. Where did Charleston and Aurora and Orlando and so many other places lead us?
Small steps you may say. But I am tired and wary of America's unending appetite for spectacle and violence. We pass by these calls for national introspection and soul-searching with barely a pause in the 24-hour news cycle. Or so it seems. We long for a kind of static innocence, but fail to see how we've been maintaining an insidious and predatory one in order to view the United States as exceptionally and unequivocally free and just.
I am grateful for the many privileges that growing up in the U.S. has afforded me. It is no small thing to live in a country where you can express your views openly. But I am actually quite thankful for not having one particular privilege, which is a feeling of belonging here. I am always the foreigner. You can't befriend, marry or birth that away. This is a truth of my American story, and I am grateful for the painful lens it gives me to look through the world.
America was built by men who didn't believe in my humanity or worth, or in the humanity or worth of those who were already inhabiting the land, or in the humanity or worth of those they stole to work the land. It took centuries of people insisting that people were people with intrinsic value in order for us to get to where we are today. Which is a place where someone like me STILL feels like they don't belong in the most ordinary and mundane ways.
Does this mean that these white terrorists in Charlottesville and elsewhere win? Or that love doesn't prevail and what not?
No. It means the work is not done, was not close to being done, and you need to be doing it now. Those Nazi bros are congratulating themselves, and the White House and significant portions of the American citizenry don't really care. Our Founding Fathers put into place a system of checks and balances to prevent a tyrannical government, but the power of America has always resided in people laying claim to America's promise in spite of this country's white male supremacy.
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