I know it’s still early, but Miya Ponsetto is definitely my nominee for Ms. Entitled America 2021. In an interview with Gayle King, Miya asserted that she was just as traumatized and equally as young as the young man she attacked, though we all know, at the end of the day, she is still an adult who jumped a child. I particularly appreciated the moment she held up a hand to shush Ms. King, an action that likely would have earned me, and probably Gayle, a smack in the face from an elder in our youth. Ahh the good old days.

Being a bit of a history buff, I appreciate those days for what they have to teach us. For example, I recently read a book by Carol Anderson called White Rage. I highly recommend it. Early in the book Anderson explains the events of post Civil War America, painting a vivid picture of that moment in history. Some say that Reconstruction would have been different if Lincoln hadn’t been assassinated, but we’ll never know. Booth shot Lincoln and Andrew Johnson, a Southerner ascended to the presidency.

It was a pivotal moment in American history. How would these newly freed people be integrated into American society? Perhaps, if Lincoln had lived, there would have been long denied education and land grants to help people become self sufficient. Instead Johnson’s sympathies lay with poor whites and he gave them land, including the land that the Union army had gifted to former slaves. He also offered pardons to those who had fought against the United States and generally spent his energies aiding the Southern whites he identified with.

Along with other factors, this empowered Southern whites to govern their own states again without a plan for our newest citizens. Instead we allowed the former rebels to rejoin the Union and rule once again over people they had already previously enslaved. In their mad desire to control the black population they made laws, the Black Codes. that, aside from allowing whites to kill blacks with impunity effectively made the ex slaves little more than slaves still, now tied to sharecropping the land.

If you read you will learn, or already know, that this led us down a road that we never should have chosen to trod. We had a moment in history. We had citizens that could have enriched our society and our country if we would just invest in their future. Make no mistake these people had skills useful for commercial purposes, not just the Plantation. There were other people calling for a different Reconstruction. Not everyone supported the idea that if 10% of a state took the Loyalty Oath they should be admitted back to the Union without consequence. There were people who wanted to educate and give land to and generally help us to fulfill the fabled American Dream for a new group of citizens.

It didn’t matter. Whatever talk happened in living rooms and court rooms and the back rooms of the times, in the end a whole bunch of black people ended up dead and that went on for a really long time. Read something if you didn’t know. Richard Wright paints a striking portrait of black life in the early 20th century in Black Boy. He tells a story about staying with an uncle who was a successful business owner until the local whites murdered him and ran the rest of the family out of town.

We know! The lynchings, the redlining, the Jim Crow, we know what we did! The earth here is soaked with their blood and the blood of others. You know. The Native Americans, Latinos and Asians. Poor whites asking for a better reward for their labors than the superiority of a lighter skin. Anyone who cried out for justice against the commercial interests.

When I first thought about what I wanted to say I thought I was just going to compare history to our current situation. The road we chose way back when we ourselves didn’t choose, led us through years of Emmett Till and Malcom X and Fannie Lou Hamer, and we know. Black people have never been given a fair and equal chance to fully participate in our Democracy and it truly has led to this day.

Back in 1865 we were way more worried about pleasing a group of powerful white men than we were about truth and justice. We know that there was nothing wrong with the ballots and that people voted Trump out because he is a bad man, but some people believe so strongly that they have invaded our nation’s Capitol leaving dead in their wake. We know. Now we hear people excusing and diverting in a vain attempt to evade the truth. Five people are dead because an unstable, selfish man lost an election and made up a lie to make himself feel better. We know.

I don’t want to talk about those hateful people because it’s not about black and white anymore. It never really was. It was always about right and wrong. It was wrong to have slaves and it was wrong to be a completely racist society and to continue to allow systemic racism and white supremacy to rule our country up until today. Am I wrong? If you think I am wrong and it is because you believe the Civil Rights Movement “fixed” the problem, I wonder if you saw the footage of the BLM protest compared to the Trump riot.

Sigh. I know “Fake news!” Or you already know. We know. We see the danger signs and we think about what we should do. I am not crying for impeachment and arrests and all that because nobody needs to hear me say that. When I began I thought I wanted to demand that we stop our systemic racism against black people once and for all because we always could have made better decisions, but we’ve been too fearful of powerful whites. Morals and decency were always too costly.

Then I thought I wanted to talk about unity, but we need to stop pretending that everything is okay now and figure out how we are going to truly come together as one nation from all different backgrounds and to hell with anyone who doesn’t want to do that. We could make this country great. If you are in a position of power, be a fair and decent human being and do your job regardless of the person you are serving. That is not what has been happening and it’s time we just faced it and dealt with it so we could move on.

When I started I knew I wanted to say that if we had walked a better road after slavery we would be in a much better place now. We would truly be making a great country and we wouldn’t have to walk around in red hats to do it. I would like to call for unity, but the ground is soaked with the blood of people killed by the antecedents of the same ones who stormed the Capitol. We turned a blind eye to the bully because he didn’t look threatening to us. Did you read The Hangman?

I want unity, but I want unity with people who want to make America great by demanding that our principles of freedom and justice hold for every person in our land and not just for some. If you can stand one more example from history I watched Trump’s 4th of July speech from Mt. Rushmore and I thought about Hitler. I know that is not original, but it is always worth a mention that Hitler set up enemies of the State and Trump started his list with the press and the Left, and now even Mike Pence has made it.

His supporters are confronting people in public. Make no mistake. I hold life sacred. I will not encourage hate and confrontation, but the danger is clear and good people have a responsibility to make our voices heard.

What kind of country do you want? Do you want to live in Trump’s America? “When good men are silent . . .” Do you remember? When I was young American meant white. We have a long history of pretending this country only belongs to certain people when this country belongs to everyone who has found their way here. Let’s start working on that. Together.