America is a Mediocre White Male
Trump’s character is the unveiling of America’s character. America is not a she. America is a mediocre white male.
I was born in the same American metropolis as three American presidents: FDR, Theodore Roosevelt, and Trump — New York City. Unlike them, I have never recited the pledge of allegiance in its entirety, never sang the national anthem, put my hand over my heart for any of the above, or said the most ignorant admonition, “God bless America.” To accept that God is blessing America is to accepts that God has been blessing America throughout her tenure of cursing everything not white, white male, or legal tender.
I boast that I am Trinidadian, the birthplace of my parents, grandparents, and great grandparents. I am sure that some of you would say that I am ungrateful for the benefits I have received as a person born in America. And I would slap you a high-5 and consider a running jump celebration like they do in the NBA and NFL. My American passport is gold when I travel because I don’t need a visa to visit most countries in this planet. I get to live in a country where poverty is not as bad as the poverty in other countries. Yes, the poverty I grew up in was not as bad as the poverty my parents came from in the colonial-oppressed Trinidad. The brutal NYS prisons I served time in were not as bad as the brutality in prisons in Trinidad. Yes, I am ungrateful.
I am most fittingly an unproud-unamerican-American. I understand that the privileges American citizenship affords me. I get to not be harassed by law enforcement. Wait, that’s incorrect. I get to not be marginalized because of my skin color. Wait, that’s incorrect (see Starbucks). I got to access the best public school education in the world. Wait, that’s also incorrect. I get to live in a country that is free of domestic terrorism. Wait, wait — that not true. I get to live in a country where the electoral process is fair and uncorrupted. Hold up, that’s not right because of gerrymandering, voter suppression, and that stolen election thing that happened back in 2000 when Al Gore won, but Bush Jr. got the court, not the electorate, to crown him king.
So, yes, I am an unproud-unamerican-American. I don’t pledge allegiance to people that won’t do the same for me. Why would I act differently for a national ideology that doesn’t love me or the people I care for?
Everything about this ungreatful (sic) nation is worth being (un) proud about. White immigrants bravely fleeing persecution to begin again in a new land, and deified for being brave; black Caribbean and Latin American immigrants bravely seeking new beginnings and opportunities and being ostracized for being brave. Proud then unproud. Welcoming immigrants to (un) welcoming immigrants.
Men creating a nation of unprecedented freedoms — except for everyone not white and male. A nation premised on liberty for all. A nation that consciously and conscientiously applies this notion of liberty on the foundations of guns, slavery, convict lease gangs, mass incarceration, and now, deportation. Proud then unproud.
America the beautiful founded on masculinity and grit. America the scoffed beacon that has more guns than people, and more gun deaths than any other developed nation. How is gun violence and mass incarceration markers of development? America the blighted that loves the brutal bravery of its beginning more than its ideals of justice for all. Proud then unproud.
America the indivisible that saw hope and fortune for itself in its manifest destiny. America the nation that saw ghettoes — that created ghettoes as the destiny for the descendants of slaves and immigrants. America that saw no one other than itself (Trump sees no one other than himself). Proud then unproud.
Because of Donald Trump all little white kids get to repeat “shithole” when referencing the blackest countries in the world . Because of the 62 million Americans that voted for Donald Trump, terms and phrases like pussy grabber, Mexican rapists, and sons of bitches have immersed themselves in the American political lexicon. Because of President Obama deportation is the new way to look tough of crime through his staunch support of secured communities. Trump is enforcing the policies that our beloved Barry implemented, George Bush Jr. articulated through the Patriot Act, and ole Bill Clinton and Joe Biden set the foundation for way back in 1996 through the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, and the Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996.
It is reductionist to blame the recent turd-filled rhetoric of Donald T., and the policies supported by him on him — alone. This country has been governed by variations of white supremacist locker room talk since its inception. The Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights excludes everyone not male and white. We had Jim Crow because white men legislated it into existence. Operation Wetback was enacted by white men in the executive branch of the federal government in 1954. The war on drugs was geared towards everyone not white or male. Ok, not quite correct. It included white people who were against war and guns ethos of Americanism — this time the Vietnam War.
In a speech given almost 50 years ago, James Baldwin referenced an instance Bobby Kennedy promised a young black boy that one, maybe in 30 years he could be President of the United States. He said:
‘“What really exercises my mind is not this hypothetical day on which some other Negro “first” will become the first Negro President. What I am curious about is just what kind of country he’ll be President of.”’
In 2017, 62 million people decided to replace the first Black president with a man who aligned himself with neo-KKK members, also known as the alt right. White evangelicals and white women voted for a sacrilegious misogynist. They voted for an America only they can be proud of — one that is primordially imperfect.
White men voted for a white man whose idea for making America great is the erasure of anyone and anything not white and male.
They voted for America.
They voted for an imperfect Union.
One that is perfect enough to sustain white supremacy, but too imperfect to correct himself.
America needs a new character; one that marginalizes whiteness of mediocre white men.
Maybe then I will consider graduating into a proud un-American American. After all, I cannot deny where I was born and the relative privilege my passport affords — a passport that I share with 44 white male American presidents.
That’s nothing to proud of.
