America’s legacy is a great hypocrisy. A magician fooled by its own illusion on race and race relations. The illusion is that they are people who are fair, equal, just, safe and peaceful -- but “others” are violent, dangerous, and must be feared. Those “others” are indigenous people and people of color -- black and brown people. It’s an illusion, because history reveals the complete opposite. America’s very existence brings danger, fear and violence to black and brown people.
A few examples?
Sure: The first settlers betrayal of the indigenous people who welcomed them and saved them from starvation; the stealing of black bodies and forced human bondage for centuries; the looting and stealing of indigenous lands across Turtle Island; the brutal enforcement of slavery and the slave patrols; the raiding of indigenous villages and massacres that ensued, the forced relocation of indigenous nations to prisoner of war camps that we call reservations where countless people died and continue to suffer in poverty of your making; the violent and terror filled era of Jim Crow where countless lynchings, rapes and assaults occurred; the forced removal of Indigenous children during the boarding school era that traumatized generations; the brutal occupations of Hawaii, Guam, Samoa, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, etc.; the violation of every single treaty the U.S. made with Indigenous nations; the internment of Japanese Americans and seizing of their property; the objectification of black and brown women and their missing and murdered bodies; the separation of families and incarceration at the southern border; the violent wars on drugs and crime which is used to justify the disproportionate mass incarceration of black and brown people and the police brutality and killing of black and brown people; the backlash you give when we peacefully take a knee; the unleashing of dogs against peaceful water protectors; etc., etc., etc.
But even more dangerous, fearful and violent -- is your silence to all the injustices. Your silence and/or minimizing of our pain and suffering itself is a continuation of violence against us.
