Racist Tropes and Hard American Truths
The current president of the United States chose to launch Black History Month by publishing a despicable racist trope on his paradoxically-named “Truth Social” account. Predictably, his utterly amoral band of obsequious staffers immediately started spinning ridiculous lies to cover-up the obvious ugly racial attack on former President and First Lady Barack and Michelle Obama. The images are all over the news and I will not amplify them here. Suffice to say that the images recall and echo some of the worst eras of American history, times when public imaging about Black persons as inhuman, animals, distorted caricatures prevailed in media and discourse among too many segments of American life.
The president is notoriously agnostic about history. The hard truth about American history is that this nation’s founding was crafted in large part in reliance on an economy where the enslavement of Black persons made the wealth of landowners possible. Founders including Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, James Madison and others could not bring themselves to imagine freeing their own slaves, even though they acknowledged the moral depravity of slavery. Most of the first ten presidents of the United States owned slaves. The notorious “3/5 compromise” in the original Constitution approved in 1789 counted slaves as 3/5 of a person for the purpose of calculating populations in states for representation in Congress — with southern states wanting all slaves counted at 100% while northern states, mindful of the large number of slaves in the south, did not want the southern states to be able to count all of their slaves fully. The fact that this nation was created on a principle that accepted Black bodies as fungible for political apportionment tells us all we need to know about the deep and lasting racism of the founding moment.
It took a bloody Civil War nearly a century after the founding of the United States to liberate the slaves, but the Emancipation Proclamation and end of the Civil War did not end American racism. In fact, in the subsequent century, the racial hatred that lies deep in parts of this country flourished, and white supremacy fueled the idea of the “lost cause” seeking to reclaim a time when privileged white men ruled supreme. The Civil Rights Era of the mid-20th Century had some landmark moments that we all thought were permanent markers on the road to change in racial justice — Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 declaring an end to racial segregation in schools; the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Right Act of 1965, both reinforcing the rights of Black persons to participate fully in American life.
Now comes a president and a regime whose slogan — “Make America Great Again” — is clearly a clarion call to roll back the clock to a time before the Civil Rights progress of the last century, possibly a time even before the Civil War. The shameful, demented racist tropes that the president published on Thursday night this week were only the latest in a long series of hostile actions against long-settled racial equity and justice gains in this country. The current president’s hostility to Black persons has been well-known throughout his professional life.
The president has directed numerous racially offensive official actions. He has issued direct orders to obliterate public displays of American history about slavery and the official and cultural injustices suffered by African Americans. Just weeks ago, in late January, in response to a presidential executive order, the National Park Service removed an exhibit about slavery from the Independence Mall in Philadelphia. This statement by the Organization of American Historians says it all:
“The now-removed exhibit explored the central paradox between slavery and freedom in America’s founding—between the articulation of inherent principles of liberty in the Declaration of Independence and the reality of a deeply entrenched system of human bondage. …
“The Organization of American Historians condemns the removal of the Freedom and Slavery exhibit, and as we have stated before firmly reject “federal actions and the systemic efforts to distort the historical record and impose through executive orders and actions a narrow vision of the American past.” The removal of the Freedom and Slavery exhibit undermines historical integrity, public trust, and the long-standing interpretative mission of the National Park Service at one of its most important and visited historical sites. Removing information about slavery from Independence National Historical Park is a fundamental misrepresentation of the social, economic, and political realities within which the Founders—and the nation at the time of its formation—debated independence and self-government.
“The exhibit removal must be understood in the context of a broader and deeply troubling and dangerous pattern. Throughout the past year, the Trump administration has pursued an agenda of interference in the public presentation of American history including through federal websites, cultural institutions like the Smithsonian, and throughout the National Park Service. It has routinely politicized and taken steps to distort or erase entirely from public view evidence-based historical information. At stake is the core democratic principle that the public has a right to an honest, accurate account of its nation’s own history, free from political censorship or manipulation. Historical knowledge is a shared civic resource and a bedrock of accountability. Government suppression of the facts of history for political and ideological ends is a practice of authoritarianism.”
The egregious political attacks on racial justice do not stop there. The political regime has gone after the Smithsonian Institution repeatedly, demanding that exhibits be taken down or changed to remove the truth about America’s racial history.
Even more, the administration has pursued a protracted and extraordinarily damaging campaign against DEI — diversity, equity and inclusion — practices that have long sought to achieve a measure of leveling the playing field for persons of color in education and employment. Disparaging and demanding an end to DEI practices has had a profoundly damaging effect on equal opportunity for Black and Brown persons in America, and sends a clear message that such persons cannot rely on their schools or employers to support them as they break barriers of access and participation in each new generation. The loss for our nation is incalculable in rising racial animus and opportunities diminished for millions of Americans.
The administration has mis-appropriated and misused Civil Rights laws to twist them against opportunities for persons of color and even perpetrating real harm against institutions devoted to equal justice. While misusing claims of anti-semitism to attack and debilitate major universities, the administration has thwarted higher education’s initiatives to achieve racial justice by demanding an end to DEI practices in higher education (a recent judicial ruling slows down the anti-DEI orders) and ending an important program of grant support for Minority Serving Institutions with a completely wrong reading of the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Harvard admissions case. (As a Predominantly Black Institution, Trinity received funding through the MSI program that supported our laboratories, faculty development, academic advising and other work that had a distinctively positive effect on student outcomes. That funding has been eliminated entirely.)
The administration’s war against immigrants also has a distinctively racial tone, focusing largely on Latinos for deportation while also according refugee status to White South Africans. The appalling use of federal ICE agents in Minneapolis started with the president’s contemptible attacks on the Somalian community there, calling them “garbage” and denouncing their contributions while alleging widespread fraud in public programs. The majority of Somalis in Minneapolis are American citizens. The subsequent violence including the deaths of two American citizens who were protesting the ICE actions is a consequence of the virulent racism that fuels the anti-immigration movement.
Beyond public policy actions, the current president also has a track record of dismissing Black executives from leadership positions in government, calling Black and Brown persons disparaging names and fostering an environment where racial animosity can flourish.
Not surprisingly, the current president takes no responsibility for his words and actions. Regarding the contemptible racist trope about the Obamas yesterday, he dismissed it as the work of a “staffer” and said he would not apologize. His moral failures are well known. These are the words and works of someone whose lack of mature emotional control is evident every day, someone who knows nothing about the responsibilities of leadership for a great nation.
We face a grave test of our commitment to the true value of social justice, the fundamental faith teaching about the dignity and worth of all human life. Racism is a direct attack on human dignity and a rejection of social justice.
How can this nation dare to plan its 250th birthday with this shameful stain on our current life in these United States? Are we really going to ignore the terrible reality of presidentially-encouraged toxic racism today while sitting back to watch an Indy car race around the monuments and a UFC fight on the White House lawn and call that a celebration of 250 years of this experiment in Democracy while the hard won gains of two and a half centuries fall apart?
We, the People, must deal with the core problem of this time in American history — the obvious and protracted assault on our values, justice and freedom for all — sooner than later. A hard American truth is that too many of us are looking the other way, not wanting to deal with this crisis.
Wake up, America!! Our values, our very basis as a nation devoted to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” for all is at stake. We must insist that Congress and the Courts find their spine, remember their responsibilities to us, and act accordingly to restore dignity, sanity and a clear respect for law and justice in the nation’s highest office.
