I wonder what happens this coming February; you know, Black History Month. Will the contingent of book banners and people who fear the delicate little psyches of white children will be permanently marred by black history prevail. Since the first enslaved Africans stepped out of the bowels of slave ships and cleaned months of scum from their bodies after surviving the middle passage, America has tried to erase black history. The lesson learned was that the best way to make a people irrelevant is to remove their identity. So I am bracing for the controversy over Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday being a holiday. After all, Dr. King once said, “I am sorry to have to say that the vast majority of white Americans are racists, either consciously or unconsciously.” Was Dr. King trying to break the will of white America’s children or educate the next generation?
Truths are not always pretty
The factions embracing this country’s abysmal revisionist racial history also want to ignore its abysmal racist recent history. Much like the South that erected statues as signs of racist intimidation memorializing traitors, emotional sculptures are now being assembled in the minds of white supremacists for terrorists. Kyle Rittenhouse drove hundreds of miles to gun down two unarmed men, killing one, and for that, the right-wing is heralding him as a hero. The victims, excuse me, “arsonists and looters,” according to Judge Brian Schroeder, shot by Rittenhouse, even in death, are victims to the current conservative political climate, helping destroy America’s collective integrity.
The term gaslighting comes from a famous movie, Gaslight, which is an adaptation of a play. The antagonist discovers that the dimming of gaslights in their home can be used as a ploy to drive his wife insane. Gaslighting is now the accepted term for deceptive lying and scheming to achieve, ironically “by any means necessary.” The constant barrage of lies from the propagandists’ news stations, like Fox and OAN, and the radio airwaves’ bombarded with vitriolic scheming rants only serve to dim the lights on truth. The regressive movement in America is severely hampering the country and has become acceptable in some quarters. Republican politicians threaten violence to anyone who dares to ask for fair voting rights, the rights of females, vaccines, or masking to protect our children. In August, Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) told an audience, “If our election systems continue to be rigged, continue to be stolen; then it’s gonna lead to one place. And that’s bloodshed.” Just a week ago, Texas Senator Ted Cruz seemingly made a case for the legitimate use of the Nazi salute at school board meetings. “My God! A parent did a Nazi salute at a school board because they thought the policies were oppressive,” he said mockingly. “General Garland is doing a Nazi salute at an elected official, is that protected by the First Amendment?” screaming his question at Attorney General Merrick Garland.
The question was a strawman argument, but it reminds us how far into the depths of racism, anti-Semitism, and downright obscenity, Republicans are willing to fall to degrade decency. In January, when Dr. King’s legacy is called into question by some paranoid suburban mom and Carter G. Woodson, founder of Negro History Week, later Black History Month, is called a separatist, we would be wise to remember the admonition of Dr. King. “Beyond the calling of race or nation or creed is this vocation of sonship and brotherhood,”Dr. King said one year before his murder. “This I believe to be the privilege or all of us who deem ourselves bound by allegiances and loyalties (that are) broader and deeper than nationalism.”
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