The fork in the road not taken

A fork in the road is a metaphor for a deciding moment in life or history, when a choice between presented options is required, and once made, the choice cannot be reversed. The chaotic nature of America in this moment is present because America is at that metaphorical fork in the road and there’s a cultural-political deathmatch over which path to take. 

The demographic and economic changes in America over the last fifty years have brought America to that metaphorical fork in the road. The America of the middle of the last century was what it had always been, a white male Christian nationalist patriarchal culture. America in the third decade of the 21st century has evolved into a completely different place. The country’s population is 40% POC and growing, by 2050 this will no longer be a majority-white country.

Every decade the country becomes less white, more secular and culturally more diverse. The America of today and tomorrow will not be, in fact cannot be, the America of white yesterday. 

America is at the point where there are only two choices, the choices are incompatible and cannot coexist. One choice is to try and maintain the white cultural, political and economic hegemony that is today’s white supremist male patriarchal society. But to do this America will have to abandon its democratic facade and go all in on a white nationalist fascist political repression. The other option is to struggle to figure out how you exist as a diverse, multicultural, multiethnic democratic society. These are the choices, there are no others.

It’s clear that white MAGA America has already made its choice, they’re all in on maintaining the white hegemony, even at the expense of the American myth. They don’t want or need democracy unless it maintains their power and privilege. Liberal democracy or authoritarian fascism are moral equivalents for them if they maintain white male supremacy. They fully understand what’s at stake for them, and it’s this desperation that gives them an edge at this moment, because of the lack of commitment of the rest of us to take the road less traveled.

In this perilous moment our biggest problem isn’t Don Trump, Ron DeSantis or White MAGA Americans. If we were to consult him more frequently, Fredrick Douglas would regularly remind us that power cedes nothing without a demand and there is no progress without struggle. One problem is the political leadership class of Black America has become highly skilled in the art of pleading and imploring, but to demand is not in the playbook. The other problem is the plurality of White Americans, who aren’t MAGA Americans, that can’t bring themselves to accept the dark foundational truths of the American story. They have an inherent, but understandable, need to believe they’re the progeny of the best people. The truth is there are no best people. Mental toughness will decide who prevails, you have to want what you want, more than they want what they want. This trophy will go, as all trophies do, to the biggest junkyard dog. 

There is an indisputable anthropological and historical fact: the most violent and destructive species to inhabit planet earth since the dinosaurs, is Homo sapiens. The reality is there are irreconcilable differences between the facts of American history and the myth of the American creation story. These historical facts don’t mean that the people who colonized North America and founded the United States should be reviled as the worst people in human history, but it also means they’re not much better either.

You cannot reform the teaching of American history until you first reform America. Which is why the history of Black and Native American people in North America will never be included in the history of white people in the United States, as the US is understood today. Because that history of Black and Native American people completely destroys the moral authority of the American hegemony. The entire superstructure that’s the United States today, the culture, the politics, the economy, rests upon the universal acceptance of the American people in the American creation myth.

Given all this, what should we be doing with Black History Month. We should think of Black History Month, beginning with Dr. King’s birthday commemoration, as a period of communion.

Church folk think of communion in religious terms, but there’s more to the concept than a religious ritual. Communion is taken from the Latin ‘communionem’ which means fellowship, mutual participation, sharing. Suppose we treated January 15th thru February 28th as our revered holy days, our Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

(https://www.adl.org/resources/tools-and-strategies/5-things-know-about-jewish-high-holidays)

During those six weeks we would collectively revisit the recorded wisdom of our ancestors to help us better understand the why of what we’re experiencing. We could immerse our children and young adults into the extraordinary high culture of Black America, so no matter where they go in this country or the world, they will always know who they are and whose they are. Adults and elders could reflect upon and recommit to the legacy we share, which includes an uncompromising commitment to the freedom of  Black people in America.

The only thing stopping us, is us.