Damaging Truth

I fled. I spent countless hours planning a two-week stay outside the US, hoarding food and cleaning supplies to avoid any threat of potential dangerous encounters unless until January 2021, so that I could perch on a beach-front property as Election Day polls opened and closed across America. Distanced from the most visceral of impacts, I can calmly report with a level of certainty and clarity greater than I’ve ever experienced before: The Damage is DONE.

Many of my friends and I, those of us with the financial means to flee our home country during these days of despair and disgrace, embrace our temporary respite because we understand all too well the psychological toll of terror and white supremacy that darken our spiritual doors at every turn. We also understand that there’s no financial fix, no tax break, that can compensate for the price of that toll. For what is the meaning of money, absent life?

We won’t find healing and reconciliation in the electoral college, the popular vote or in White colleagues trying to reassure us and themselves with the stale refrain: “We’re better than this.” Let me be clear — No, you (we) are not. America has always had and has once again flaunted her entrenched hatred, and despicable God-like worship of economics (the stock market/money) over human life. That is exactly who we are. That is also who we’ve always been, and who we will continue to be unless and until we name and destroy the parasite embedded deeply in our foundation — White Supremacy.

Notice that I did not say “white supremist,” even though I mean them, too. Instead, my focus remains on White Supremacy: an insidious idea and system that undergirds US policies and politics, education and criminal justice, economics and even our unconscious. White Supremacy posits that Whiteness is greater than Blackness and every other shade on the earth; therefore, Whiteness deserves to — must — dominate. White Supremacy, based on the illusory construct of Whiteness, inspires entire populations of people to voluntarily shed their own cultural heritage — German, Irish, Italian, French, etc. — and cover themselves with the opaque cloak of Whiteness. Once “White,” they can actively participate in and benefit from the racist, caste system that has for hundreds of years been rooted in death and destruction, greed and oppression, and physical and psychological warfare.

I’m talking about the White Supremacy that endorsed 400-plus years of chattel slavery, killed George Floyd, Brionna Taylor and countless other unarmed Black citizens, approved the separation of families and at least 545 orphaned children at the border, and championed economic and environmental destruction all over the world. Hell, I’m even talking about the White Supremacy that killed Minnesota Police Officer Derek Chauvin. Because, let’s face it, thanks to the poisonous DNA of White Supremacy, Chauvin lost his soul long before he nonchalantly kneeled the life out of George Floyd.

You see, if the very utterance of the words “Black Lives Matters” incites anger, hatred or resentment, then the damage is DONE. If the very thought of acknowledging Black humanity or of protesting state-sanctioned murders was so repugnant that more than 67 million voters stood up for “four more years,” then the damage is done. America has never been Great, and it certainly is not today.

So I leave you with this: if you voted to continue down the same destructive path as we watch more than 900 Americans die from Covid-19 each day, with 30+ million people unemployed and their numbers growing, with evictions rising, with more children hungry and 8 million more people living in poverty since March, then the DAMAGE IS DONE.

Our social contract is broken; in this ongoing battle, there is no such thing as “Good people on both sides.” That is not a political statement; it is a moral statement. When we accept that the economy yields more weight than human life, we must also hear the eerie echoes of voices justifying institutional slavery and oppression. NO MORE. No more grace, mercy and understanding for evil deeds.

At this point, the election results don’t matter. Simply knowing that 48 percent of Americans voted for White Supremacy is all the truth I need. Why, you ask? Because even perched on beach-front property, hundreds of miles from my home, I have found neither refuge or respite. Because the Damage is Done.