What gets carried forward from our past? What spirits follow us? What nightmares haunt us, not only in our sleep but during our waking hours?

Generational trauma is a proven reality. Add to that our individual experiences with racism and discrimination. We all have our stories. Interactions with the police, teachers, employers and supervisors, neighbors, bank officers, store employees, those times you were called “nigger” by a pale-skinned stranger as they landed that hard e r at the end. You name it, we carry these experiences within us.

What adds insult to injury is if sharing these experiences with our “Anglo” counterparts gets dismissed and whitesplained away.  

“Are you sure it was racist?” “Why does everything have to be about race with you people?” “Slavery was a long time ago.” “No one is holding you back. Look at Oprah and Michael Jordan.” “Stop playing the victim.” “We elected Obama twice.”

Yet they fail to see that such responses reflect a successful indoctrination of the very white supremacy mentality they deny exists. It essentially says, “I know more about your experiences than you do. You are not intelligent enough to know how to interpret your own history, so let me do you a favor and do that for you.” It is truly insulting to say the least, and can shut down much-needed ongoing communication, in light of that one conversation.   

America continues to run from its past. It covers up its sin as if it will simply vanish without a trace. It recreates its history and teaches us to view it through rose colored glasses.

It feeds itself on the ignorance of its people, pushing revisionist, watered-down history, and presenting it as unquestionable truth to be celebrated by all, regardless of their level of victimization.

It’s the 4^th of July’s one-sided celebratory perspective, minus the truth of Frederick Douglass’ balanced delivery in his speech entitled, “What to the Slave is Your 4^th of July.”

Those who courageously speak truth to power are demonized and shunned as being unpatriotic.

Controlling the masses is often predicated on controlling the dissemination of information. Control the educational system by teaching only what you want them to learn, and you control the culture. And what you want them to learn may have nothing to do with what is true, but what helps promote the system of racism/white supremacy.

It begins during our formative years, from birth through age 8.

It’s picked up in our school’s curriculum. Example, Exhibit A: The Pythagoras theory lie – a geometric theorem originating in ancient Egypt, stolen, and claimed by the Greek philosopher and mathematician Pythagoras.  

To that point, I recall sitting in a math class in college when the professor was teaching about the so-called Pythagorean theorem. I raised my hand and asked if he was aware that Pythagoras stole and took credit for that theory from Egypt.

He changed to a reddish color before our very eyes and said that he was aware of this, but would continue to refer to it as it was known. In other words, even a well-known institution of higher learning refused to teach the truth but instead chose to double down on a lie.

This systemic institutionalized system is promoted via media, TV, and movies that feature virtually exclusive “white” leads, casts, heroes, and “white” savior themes.

It’s baked in through magazines pushing “white standards of beauty.” Who doesn’t know of the iconic blond-haired, blue-eyed, wholesome, undernourished Polly purebred image?  

Skin lightening creams, and hair products that can help make your naturally textured hair straight, and acceptable to “white” folks, colored eye contacts, and European garb. All are acceptably defined as a part of the look of success and professionalism.   

Speaking truth gets one labeled a rebel, a militant, a radical, a thug, non-patriotic, and un-American. It can put a target on your back as a threat to “America the beautiful.” It can get you put on the FBI’s Most Wanted list; just ask the remaining Black Panthers and Angela Davis.   

“Love it or leave it,” comes the rallying cry, followed by chants of “USA, USA!”

We’ll never heal our nation until we can have honest and civil conversations about the whole of America, including not only its good points (we get plenty of that already) but also a healthy balance of the bad and the ugly. It’s what grown-ups do. It’s the reality of a fallen, sin-ridden world. There are no true paradises here on earth as long as sin remains in the world.

We do no one any favors by cultivating a false image of America as Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.  

America is built on a platform of racism/white supremacy. Our global status of being a superpower, economically and politically, was established on the backs of the enslaved and the genocide of Native Americans. It’s a documented history we can’t afford to ignore if we truly want to make America great.

But those of us who seek a great America for all, unfortunately, butt heads with those who only desire a great America NEVER set up for that. But as long as the masses are kept ignorant of America’s true history, they will continue to be misled, and true justice and equality will continue to remain elusive.   

Cancer is prevalent, and America suffers from a malignant metastasizing terminal case. Just when it looks like it may be in remission, it comes back with a vengeance. Every time we seem to be moving forward, the rug is pulled out from underneath us.       

The 13^th, 14^th, and 15^th Amendments looked good on paper, but took nearly 100 years to be realized. The end of slavery looked good on paper, but we ignored the caveat of free labor via incarceration and the Black Codes that fed into it.

Forty acres and a mule sounded good on paper to the newly freed enslaved, until it was revoked by President Johnson.  

Reconstruction looked good on paper, yielding over 2,000 Black politicians being voted into office, until Jim Crow laws were ushered in, just 12 years later.

The election of America’s first Black President looked like a big step forward, until one of the nation’s biggest con men stepped into office to undo any previously held progress.

Can America be healed? There is still hope. We, as POC, have been through worse but held on and fought back. We, along with our lesser melanated allies, must continue to keep that hope alive.

We must learn, educate, and maintain our nation’s history, and continue to build relationships with those outside of our demographics. We must promote truthful visual images of POC in the Bible, and heroes and sheroes in history, and their global accomplishments.

Our media portrayals must become more balanced. We are seeing more and more so-called interracial couples in media, more dark-skinned women with natural hair in media and advertising beauty products, Black superheroes, and Black lead actors, and portraying people of power and influence. Hope.

With so much easy access to information, it has become more difficult to control information. Hope.        

With more interaction across “racial,” ethnic, and immigrant lines at an early age, it becomes more and more difficult to sell the ignorance of racism/white supremacy and to maintain its indoctrination strategies. Hope. Let’s keep it alive.