Soul of a nation is under the knife; Death is standing in the doorway of life …Bob Dylan, “Dignity”
A recent cover of The Atlantic (which is far and away the best magazine in the country in my humble opinion) featured a map of America with the states made out of wood, like a jigsaw puzzle, but with none of the pieces touching. The question being asked was, “Can America Put Itself Back Together?” Which is an incisive question indeed.
A month or so ago I penned a wildly contrarian and purposefully provocative article entitled “Is it Time to Seriously Consider Dissolving the Union?” It was written in response to Texas governor Greg Abbott making the secession noises mossback southerners and far right-wing conservatives make from time to time as if it’s some kind of threat. My article was written in part to call their bluff, encourage them to go and take all of the haters with them while they’re at it.
Nonetheless, many readers considered my question quite preposterous; some from the perspective that the logistics of splitting the country in two would be a nightmare of unimaginable proportions, while others said that such a split isn’t necessary, that we will eventually get over our national squabble — something I personally doubt. It won’t happen in my lifetime, and probably not in my great, great-grandchildren’s either.
Rapprochement between America’s deeply divided factions would take centuries, that is, if we don’t unravel and self-destruct in the interim. And no one should be so smug and jingoistic as to think “It could never happen here,” that our beloved Republic is too strong to self-destruct. It’s not. Simply peer into the dustbin of history and you’ll see that the citizenry of other nations got caught up in the same flawed thinking and suffered the consequences.
Nero fiddled while Rome burned.
The writer of the article in The Atlantic, the always-brilliant James Fellows, went on a three-year sojourn across America and ended up feeling positive about the future of our nation. I wish I shared his optimism. I don’t. While he sees the glass as half full, I see it as half empty, and with the water table decreasing almost daily. Perhaps it’s the level of scurrilous political discourse that we’ve been constantly been bombarded with during this election cycle that has me feeling so glum, but on closer reflection, I think not. My feelings are deep-seated and long-standing.
Fellows’ article, fine and uplifting as it was, still fell short in one glaring respect. He was seeking out the positive stories that can be found all across this great country of ours, while, to a degree, he put on blinders to the negative tales that can be found in abundance also. He was racially inclusive to a point, but didn’t include many voices of the black middle class.
The thing is, I, like most other blacks, look at America through a different prism, a different set of lenses than most whites. And we oftentimes tend to see other things about our country more accurately than someone from outside of our cultural and racial experiences. Yet our views are often discounted, given short shrift, as if they have no legitimacy, value, or meaning.
This is only natural since there really already are two Americas.
And these two Americas are joined together like a couple trapped in a bad marriage: All the two sides have done — for the most part, over the last 50 or so years — is finger-point, fault find and cast blame on each other for the problems facing the nation, problems that keep us continually at war within our own borders. But, just as in any bad marriage, both sides are right (at least from their own perspective) and of course both sides are — to some degree or another — wrong. But in either case, as in any failed union, there’s certainly enough blame to go around.
My fear is that the breach is too deep, the chasm is too wide, and the differences too entrenched to overcome. My deeper fear is that we’ll destroy the country by attempting to keep the Union together.
Next, Part II discusses the causalities of the war
From Cool Cleveland correspondent Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com. Frazier’s From Behind The Wall: Commentary on Crime, Punishment, Race and the Underclass by a Prison Inmate is available again in hardback. Snag your copy and have it signed by the author by visiting http://NeighborhoodSolutionsInc.com.
One Response to “MANSFIELD: Casualties of War – Part 1”
Bill R.
I too believe the union will fragment but maybe for different reasons. As resources like food and energy become scarce due to climate change and depletion and wages continue to fall strong central governments like the federal and state governments will become insignificant and incapable of maintaining any control. People will revert to simpler living, probably based on growing food, and will naturally form local societies just to survive. A large cumbersome complicated bureaucratic energy hog central government just won’t make it.