As
I listened to the speech, I had the feeling that Trump was declaring war, but
by whom against whom was fuzzy. Since then my focus has sharpened and I now
believe he was rallying those who want to continue believing the dominant
national fictions against those who are demanding an honest accounting of what
America has been in order to proceed toward true values.
No
place outside the capitol embodies the white mythos of the U.S. as belligerently
as Mt. Rushmore. A little over 100 miles northwest of Wounded Knee, which would
be more honestly representative of American history, Mt. Rushmore is sacred to
the Sioux nation as the Six Grandfathers and is still part of an unsettled land
dispute. Consistent with their culture that did not seek to dominate the
natural world, Lakota Sioux saw the area as full of spiritual power, of portals
where one could contact the sacred. An entirely different cultural ethos carved
into the granite of the mountain the heads George Washington, Thomas Jefferson,
Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln, four white men who each served as
president. This so-called Shrine of Democracy could more accurately be called a
Shrine to White Colonial Imperialism. Washington and Jefferson owned plantations
worked by enslaved people. Lincoln signed off on the execution of 38 Sioux men,
the largest mass execution in US history. Roosevelt developed a policy of international
national aggression underlying the motif of carrying a big stick.
The
murder of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis, one of many such murders of
African Americans, set off waves of protest throughout the United States under
the aegis of Black Lives Matter. Demonstrations held a mirror up for the
country, a view welcomed by many as long overdue. Police were the latest iteration
of the border patrol holding the line for a racist white nation against a
nonwhite population. The unprecedented Covid-19 pandemic had already laid bare
institutional racism throughout the country by highlighting the
disproportionate numbers of people of color who were sick and dying from the
virus.
The
demonstrators understood that the death of George Floyd was not an isolated
incident perpetrated by “bad apples.” The police are volunteers in an institution
that originally served slavery but since the Civil War has perpetuated racism.
Statues of people who participated in enslavement and fought to maintain it
were pulled off their pedestals. Trump, who mentioned nothing about the victims
of police brutality and only fleetingly acknowledged the existence of Covid-19,
chose to highlight the destruction of lumps of bronze and cement: “Our nation
is witnessing a merciless campaign to wipe out our history, defame our heroes,
erase our values, and indoctrinate our children. Angry mobs are trying to tear
down statues of our founders, deface our most sacred memorials, and unleash a
wave of violent crime in our cities.”
Triumphalist
but meaningless language marked the speech: “1776 represented the culmination
of thousands of years of Western civilization” and “the most magnificent
country in the history of the world.” Historians find both ideas erroneous, nevertheless
DJT’s acquaintance with the truth is notoriously lacking. But the meaning of
the words had nothing to do with the veracity of the speaker and all to do with
creating an aura of bellicose superiority. This speech dismisses any notion
that values have ever been transgressed, that wrongs have ever been committed.
This is a call to amnesia.
After
listening to presidential news conferences on the pandemic, I know that the
sentences of the speech, grammatical and complex, were not crafted by the
president, but by others who share his agenda. However, the coherent message
belongs to the man. Woven throughout the text of the panegyric were the
dog-whistles, code words, meant to remind his loyal base that he was still
theirs: “the American family is the bedrock of American life,” “we are building
the wall,” “America first,” and “[e]very child of every color, born and unborn,
is made in the holy image of God.”
Throughout
the demonstrations against police murder, a number of those dispatched to keep
order, even police and national guardsmen, took a knee to show solidarity with
the marchers in a gesture of moral unity. The Commissioner of the National
Football League apologized for requiring players on the field to stand during
the national anthem after a video from players named numerous victims including
George Floyd and asked the NFL to condemn racism. Perhaps the most cynical use
of coded speech at Mt. Rushmore was this: “We stand tall, we stand proud, and
we only kneel to Almighty God.”
The
entire speech was an attempt to stem the rising tide of awareness by white
Americans at what Americans of color understand quite well: the American dream
and the American promise that have been honored in words have been criminally
neglected in action. DJT placed himself directly in the path of righting that
wrong and called on his followers to join him.
"[A]s
we meet here tonight, there is a growing danger that threatens every blessing
our ancestors fought so hard for, struggled, they bled to secure. Our nation
is witnessing a merciless campaign to wipe out our history, defame our heroes,
erase our values, and indoctrinate our children. Angry mobs are trying to
tear down
statues of our founders, deface our most sacred memorials, and unleash
a wave of violent crime in our cities. Many of these people have no idea why
they’re doing this, but some know what they are doing. They think the American
people are weak and soft and submissive, but no, the American people are
strong and proud and they will not allow our country and all of its values, history,
and culture to be taken from them."
While
characterizing those who hope to build a more just and moral nation as either
ignorant or criminal, the president absolved his followers from the hard work
of committing all of us to making a more perfect union.
It
is encouraging that monuments are coming down, monuments that were erected to
maintain white supremacy and enslavement by other names long after the Civil
War. Not until a true history of this country is uncovered, not until the
amnesia of mythology is unflinchingly overcome, will the possibilities in the
promise of July 4, 1776, be brought within reach of all Americans. When the
Black Lives lost during enslavement and Jim Crow are named and enshrined in
gratitude for their creation of America, when memorials at Wounded Knee and
Sand Creek acknowledge the sins of imperialism, when walking the stations along
the Trail of Tears is a true reminder of who Andrew Jackson was, then perhaps
it will begin to be time to offer congratulations.
Gemstone: Black Onyx
