What does being a citizen of the United States mean? I probably thought I knew what it meant until I was about 13 years old when I found out what the Civil War was really all about. It wasn’t about freeing the slaves or about the amorphous concept of states rights. To my horror I discovered that it was really about cold hard cash. Who had the most of it and what they did with it. So at 13 my eyes were opened.
I thought I knew what being a citizen of this country until served in the United States Navy and began to study its history. It was a real shock to my system to learn the truth.That until 1942 the Navy that I felt so proud to be a part of had not allowed black Naval personal to be anything more than ships stewards/cooks. It was still a shock to my system in the 70’s when white sailors would cross the street to avoid saluting a black officer. So once again my eyes were opened.
When I left the Navy and started Law School there were cases that fascinated me. Plessy v. Ferguson, Dred Scott, and Brown v. Board of Education. I learned a few things. I learned that the US Supreme Court was and had been since its inception a reflection of the national fish bowl. That justice was not color blind and that there were people like me who had been relegated to second class citizenship at birth. So once again my eyes were opened.
I think back now to the Presidency of Ronald Reagan. They called him the great communicator. There are a plethora of other things he could have been called. One of those things might have been the great liar. While pious sitting in the Whitehouse he and Nancy lectured the country about just saying no to drugs. The irony is that while he was saying just no time and time again his government was turning black and brown communities into a drug hell by trafficking in cochise to fund and illegal war.
Reagan was a special kind of evil. He cut the taxes of the super rich and big business and implemented a tax on social security who does that in the home of the brave? He single handedly destroyed the air traffic controllers union and Americans rever him. Exactly what does being a US citizen really mean.
Maybe it means the Proud Boys and other alt-right white supremacy groups marching around with their Tiki torches shouting we will not be replaced.
Maybe it means having a hoard of violent insurrectionist lay siege to the capitol because their guy lost.
Maybe it means that a single political party decides that democracy is a pesky relic that they no longer have any use for so they vow to destroy it. They laugh voter suppression campaigns state by state to turn white votes into the only votes that matter. They laugh because you lack the backbone to stop them.
So what does it mean to be an American citizen. It means that we view paying our fair share as a burden rather than a privilege. It means that the notion of fair play is purely an illusionary concept. It man’s when you tell yourself that you’re better and more civilized than other people in the 🌎 world you are delusional. It means that all of those things that you thought made you different from Nazi Germany were never real. You were always a beast in sheep’s clothing.
THINK!!
EYES WIDE 👀 OPEN!!!
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