Now that our four-year national nightmare appears — unless some serious skullduggery takes place between now and Election Day — to be blissfully coming to an end, I can now feel comfortable saying to my white friends from every position on the political spectrum: Now, perhaps, just maybe, some of you might have a sense of what it feels like to be black in America.
To live in dread of what nonsense tomorrow might bring; to worry about the kind of future your offspring are going to face; indeed, if you might have to learn how to “take low” — to avoid saying anything the least bit controversial out of fear “they” might come banging on your door in the middle of the night.
You do know — or at least you should — that the new totalitarian America the right wing have (or at this point had) plans of instituting if their madman were to be reelected includes silencing anyone that dared to voice opposition to the apartheid regime. It would not have happened immediately, but over time laws would be made against repeating whatever the jackbooted thugs in charge said it was against the law to give voice to.
But it appears as if we’ve dodged that bullet since Americans of good conscience seemingly are going to the polls in record numbers, and after the election we can begin the process of beginning to truly bring our nation together to assure our democratic future. But in order to do that we have to finally face up to our racist past.
Yes, I’m talking about our original sin: Slavery.
As unpleasant as the topic is for the majority of both whites and blacks, the plan and simple truth is, our history affects our present in so many ways it’s impossible to enumerate. But know this: If our past didn’t include racial hatred there never would have been a tRump elected in this country.
In order to truly understand and come to terms with our past, we must educate ourselves in regards to what truly happened — and why. Fortunately, Isabel Wilkerson, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Warmth of Other Suns, has a new book that takes a deep dive into race and racism in America, illuminating our history in a manner no writer has ever before accomplished. Her work is truly breathtaking at various points. She also compares the system developed here in America to the caste system in India, and even details how the Nazis utilized the groundwork on race done in the early 20thcentury by American pseudo-scientists as they formulated their “Final Solution.”
The prestigious progressive magazine The American Prospect wrote a review that said in part, “Wilkerson’s work is the missing puzzle piece of our country’s history.” And comments from other reviewers are just as effusive in their praise of this landmark work. Additionally, the book is an Oprah’s Book Club selection.
Similar to how Michelle Alexander’s seminal book The New Jim Crow ignited a movement to bring our carceral system into the 21stcentury more than a decade ago, Isabel Wilkerson’s work provides the light we need to find our way out of the darkness of our ugly past and into that brighter future we all claim to desire. Anyone who is truly serious about the “reckoning” our nation needs to go through must first educate themselves about our past, and reading Caste: The Origins of Our Discontent is the requisite starting point.
