You thought you were cunning. You grew up in the suburbs of Kansas, New Hampshire, North Dakota. You and your small group of friends were perpetually misunderstood by your middle-aged white folks and their ilk. You mumbled through the hymns at church every Sunday. You only attended football games during Homecoming. You drove your Volkswagon to the nearest big city for every rap concert, and bumped the Blueprint 2 in your parent’s basement the night before high school graduation. You dreamed of that day (it was soon forthcoming) when you would make it to New York. The city lights were supposed to wash over you, almost baptismally, freeing you of the cancerous America that bred you. You were going to study compartive literature (you loved Nietzche) and maybe minor in computer science. Maybe you would date outside your race or try shrooms. You thought you would build a new America, better than the one from which you came. Though you knew you couldn’t be black (you never really wanted to be), you tried to just be Cool (it was working for the most part), just so long as you never again had to be white.
You’ve failed. On November 9, 2016, the white liberal imagination materialized its greatest creation — its very own Frankenstein: Donald J. Trump, President of the United States of America. The decision was met with your disdain, panic, and shock. Understandably, you tried to subdue your guilt by finger-pointing. You fashioned charts that signaled to third-party voters. You looked for the hanging-chads. Then, most predictably, you tried to blame black people. But not this time, friends, not this time.
What lies in the balance is not my fate nor the fate of my future children. History has wrapped us in the warmth of her resilience, and we will survive this America (as we always have). There is no harm they can do upon us that has not been done. Though often misguided by the false rhetoric of progressivism, black people have never truly bought the myth of New America you all so desperately tried to sell to us. We have always known what lies deeply within this country beyond your corporate diversity boards and university safe spaces. We know white supremacy consumes this nation. It is you who should be shaken. Your fate hangs in the balance.
You might be wondering how it came to this. Maybe you canvassed the streets for Bernie Sanders or attended Hillary’s rallies. You tweeted Black Lives Matter. You read about intersectional feminism and you dated black people. Now *cue shock* you look upon your distant Floridian relatives in disgust and dismay, and you wonder why they reject this new and changing America… your America. You ask yourself “Why was it not enough? What more could you have I done?”
You should’ve gone home. You should’ve talked to your cousins, aunts, and parents. You should’ve dispeled their fictional politic of “fiscal conservatism, social liberalism.” You should’ve taken all that expansive, expensive knowledge of the “other” and shaken your hometown to its core. You should’ve wrecked your family and burned down your churches. You should’ve told your preacher, “Your God is racist.” You should’ve stood in front of mosques in arms, ready to die for a Muslim’s right to pray. You should’ve incited riots over Eric Garner. You should’ve bombed Ohio precincts over Tamir Rice. It should’ve been you. You should’ve put everything on the line to save my life.. but you didn’t. Now you will have to save your own.
White supremacy has come to the door of White liberalism to claim her children.. and she is pissed. You naively attempted to build a new America without facing the ever-present visage of the old. You built your self-driving cars and drone delivery services. You recognized the multiplicity of gender. You outlawed plastic bags. You legalized marijuana. You married into our families, bought our music, and gentrified our neighborhoods. You thought it would be enough. You thought you did the work, but you didn’t. In your quest for personal liberation, not only have you made our lives as non-white people much more difficult, you’ve incited panic in your own places of origin. Recognize now that conservative male protestantism has been the mostconsistent face of America, and that it is you who has changed. You have tainted the sanctity of their beliefs, and now it is you who will face the consequences.
I can pretend your inaction (and inadequacy) is a surprise to me, as it might come as a surprise to you. But I know exactly why you have strayed from the front lines. I know why you’ve shirked the responsibility of facing your own. Firstly, you believed I would do it for you. As centuries of history have evidenced, the white moderate has always believed American white supremacy to be foremost a black problem. You believed yourself to be an ally in my cause. You believed that by some progressive osmosis I would be absorbed into your systems and eventually amasse my own “equality” and “freedom.” Your notions of equality were bound to your sense of superiority, and today (as this election has proven) you too are not free. Look around you, it’s just not happening.
Furthermore, I recognize that you cannot face your white counterparts because you are your white counterparts. Your elitism and dishonest intellectualism have told you there exist several Americas: Conservative/Liberal/ saltwater/freshwater. This is false. There is one America and much like today, she always reveals herself. The same white supremacy permeating through your old hometowns are pervading your current environment: your universities, your jobs, your households. Though they purport different symptoms, Columbus, Ohio and Columbia University are crippled with the same disease of whiteness. Your hubris and narcissism have failed you. You wanted all the splendor of whiteness with none of its ugly. You mocked your Southern and Midwestern brothers, cornerning them with the language of inferiority and contempt. You thought you could be in it, but not of it. It is time to step out of the broken mirrors of narcissus. You thought you could love yourself and hate your brother, but you are your brother’s keeper. It is high time to embrace him, even if you must lose yourself.
Yes, you have lost this election (it was never mine to win). And I cannot (nor will I attempt to) console you. I must now protect myself, as I always have. I know you are panicked and dismayed. I know you are asking “What happens next?” But fret not, what lies before you is greater than what lies behind you. What you have now is the greatest opportunity America will see in this lifetime. If you will take up the task of recognizing history (real American history) you may finally be freed of it. If not, you will perish (and drag me down with you). It is time to dispel the fiction of whiteness and white supremacy. It is time to forfeit your own protection. Now is the time you must face yourself. And you must also face me, recognizing the violence done upon my humanity as a threat to your own. If you love America (as I know you do) you must be willing to undo her. My friends, there has never been a greater urgency.