Who We Are

We’ve been here before. America has reacted in terrible ways to situations it deems a threat. Sometimes it is started by our government, sometimes it is started by the people. Both influence each other’s hands. So the notion that “cooler heads will prevail” in the current situation we find our country, should be said with an understanding of what that means. And, for me, it means this will only get worse. 

Thousands and thousands of Americans, calling themselves Patriots, descended on our nations Capitol. Most came there because they believe the election had been stolen. They believed they were protecting America and stopping the overthrow of our government. So they decided they would overthrow it themselves. They were instigated by a slew of lies and propaganda from many sources, including the President of the United States. And so they saw a threat, and they reacted. And people died. 

But this is not the first time America has done this. 

In the 1800s we, as a country, saw Native Americans as a threat. A threat to our plans for the future of America. So we rounded them up and marched them to their death in The Trail of Tears. We waged war against people whose crime was nothing more than occupying the land we wanted. We forced Native Americans from their homes and marched them thousands of miles, killing an incalculable number in the process. All for their land. Native Americans were the enemy. And if they defended their own land, we used that as a reason to justify killing them. They were savages. We dehumanized them so we could accept their death. 

During World War Two, after Japan attacked us at Pearl Harbor, we rounded up every Japanese American that we could and we placed them in concentration camps. This terrible piece of history is rarely ever talked about in our schools. Many Americans don’t even know it happened. America rounded up innocent, American citizens and locked them away in camps. We saw them as a threat and treated them as such. 

After 9/11, Americans turned on Muslim Americans. We blocked places of worship from being built, we assaulted them, mocked them, belittled them. Even though 9/11 wasn’t a Muslim attack, because the attackers were, we blamed the entire religion. The term Muslim was even used as slander and an insult to President Obama. He was called a Muslim as if that was a bad thing. Even today people will read that and agree that is a justifiable insult. That being Muslim is bad and deserves the label. 

And lets not forget the biggest example of how Americans treat those who we see as a threat or as lesser than us. Our history with slavery and racism is deep and well known. Black people don’t have good eyesight at night. Black people can’t swim because their bodies are made different. Black people are good enough to drink from the same water fountain as white people. And this is how we treated the black community AFTER we fought an entire war to end slavery. 

Ninety years after slavery ended Emmett Till, a 14-year old African American, was legally lynched and killed in Mississippi because he was accused of offending a white woman in a grocery store. 

A 14-year old boy was sleeping in his bed in the middle of the night when white men drove to his house and kidnapped him in front of his family. They tied him up, threw him in the back of their pickup truck, and drove away. The then beat Emmett, shot him, and threw him over a bridge into a ditch where he died. 

The men who killed Emmett Till were found not guilty. The all white jury deliberated for 67 minutes. One juror said “If we hadn’t stopped to drink pop, it wouldn’t have taken that long.”

This is America. We have to own this. 

How we got here, how we have found ourselves in a place where millions can willfully believe a lie, is a discussion that needs to happen. And it is not from one specific place. Donald Trump did not just show up and say words and people were brainwashed. The blame for this is long and complicated. 

But we must discuss it. 

Because our Capitol building was stormed by angry Americans who demand to be heard. And we can’t ignore them. Otherwise their actions will become normal. As normal as Whites Only restaurants and water fountains. As normal as rounding up Japanese Americans or blaming Muslims for every terrorist attack. 

Terrorists attacked the Capitol on January 6th. They just happened to be Americans, wearing American flags as armor. And if we don’t discuss this. If we aren’t honest with our history and the awfulness we are capable of, this will continue. And it will get much, much worse.