Some years ago I heard a Frenchman in a Michael Moore film say that, "In France, the government is afraid of the people. In the United States, the people are afraid of the government". Is that not what we see currently happening in the good ole' US of A?
Right now it is unquestionable that the United States is socially and politically unstable. No question. Call it by whatever polished word or sanitized phrase you wish, but we are unraveling. At the same time citizens in France, Israel and Germany are all turning their countries upside down in opposition to actions by their governments. What is wrong with the people of the United States who claim to be the face of democracy? We are in a downward spiral, and have been for quite some time and nobody seems to be making a big fuss about anything.
Our children are being murdered while at school. Our civil rights are being snatched from us right before our very eyes, not just from Black people, wake up!, from all of us. And we are quiet as church mice.
It's almost like since COVID, we have been in a social experiment where our government and major corporations are continually poking the bear, yet we continue to sleep. Peacefully. Nothing seems to wake us, not inflated inflation, rising prices and shrinking packages, eroding customer service, absence of government representation, and more. We are failing miserably as subjects of this social experiment.
At what point do Americans say to our government, enough is enough, we're fed up and we're not taking it anymore? When do we take to the streets ? When do we stop sending our children to school to be slaughtered? I just don't know.
We say we're saving our children from the "sins" of being gay or exposed to drag queens or made "uncomfortable" by learning the truth of America's history, specifically toward Black Americans and Indigenous People, but at the same time we're OK with them being shot up in our schools, public and private. Please tell me what part of that makes sense. Please tell me where we're going as a society. I genuinely, genuinely and respectfully ask, are we afraid of our government? Whose interests does our government represent, that of We The People or that of their pockets and corporate concerns?
We are an unrepresented and seemingly, a defeated people. That is sad and history tells us, it does not end well...
What a compelling perspective that speaks volumes to the ongoing entanglement of U.S. history and the complexities of being Black in America. For sure, sitting on this side of COVID has illuminated odyssey's around a plethora of closely reexamined beliefs, actions, and behaviors that once felt traditional. Normalized social conditionings that I attributed to my natural way of being to include how I viewed governmental systems within this country. It was Linda that suggested reading John Perkins book Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, but I read it many years ago and it removed the dramatization around my beliefs in democracy along with altering how I examined the intentions of the government and the insider deceptions in which the government works to explore and distort other countries around the world. When we place the development of the Constitution and the many layers of rhetoric expressed in conflict with the actions of its leaders, my question is why have be invested so much energy in believing an illusion that has always kept Black people on the precipice of the American Dream. So, the parody of the advertised dream has been and reminds a nightmare with ebbs and flows.
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