By Terry Manning
When I started writing for this newspaper, I was less concerned with Donald Trump and Trumpism than I was with what I felt the takeaways might be from his first term in the White House.
I tried to look at the broader picture of a country growing stranger to me.
I wrote about “freedom” versus “free-dumb.” The term used by writer Umair Haque described what he saw as the transformation of what Americans traditionally celebrated as freedom from (unnecessary federal oversight, regulation and persecution) into a lesser freedom to (be selfish, assert the individual over society, or elevate a con man to the presidency just to tick off the libs.)
Specifically, Hague wrote, free-dumb is “the absence of any kind of obligation or responsibility to anything greater than narrow, immediate, infantile self-satisfaction.” He wrote in May 2020 in reaction to the COVID crisis and its mask mandates, but I would gather the term is a relevant summation of how much of the world views America today.
And what sparks this view more than the mishandled immigration policies of the current administration? Armed, masked men swarm unsuspecting day laborers on low-paying jobs. Or stage courthouse stakeouts to seize applicants following the lawful process of gaining citizenship.
Frightened schoolchildren leave notes for their mates, begging them not to be forgotten if ICE agents grab them up and ship them off to countries known and unknown.
Some citizens who oppose these policies and actions march. Some protest. Some risk themselves by pointing their smartphone cameras at the sanctioned abductions. And many ask, where are the Black marchers? Why aren’t Black people doing more? Don’t they know they are next?
To which many Black Americans answer, no, baby, we were first! And while yes, other people of color marched alongside us, a lot of those other people chose not to. They saw that sometimes racism in this country isn’t about Black and white, it’s about Black and non-Black, and if they could join with the non-Black side, their efforts to assimilate often paid off for them.
A friend sent me a video clip in which a series of influencers give reasons for Black Americans having every right to exercise their freedom to mind their business.
From a young Black woman: “When y’all come here, you align with whiteness, you glorify whiteness, you love whiteness, and you demonize Blackness, so you need to make videos to ask white Americans to join with you ’cause that’s who you love so much.”
A young Black man: “You came here illegally, so you’re getting sent back. Like, I’m not really understanding where I’m supposed to be feel bad. … We can’t just go to other countries illegally and just pop up and start working.”
Another young woman: “They’re always trying to find a reason to blame Black people for anything, even when we clearly have nothing to do with this. At all.”
A young Puerto Rican woman: “Black people are tired of being a bank where everyone keeps making withdrawals, and no one ever makes a deposit … I’ve seen how anti-Blackness and colorism still show up in our homes, in our language, in our media, in our families.”
And later, from the same Puerto Rican woman: “To Black women and men that are saying we’ve poured into everybody and got nothing back, you’re not wrong. You’ve carried movements, you’ve carried communities, you’ve carried generations, without rest, without complaint.”
Those are hard arguments to dispute. And yet … If we pride ourselves on being the first fighters for truth, the frontline for making America live up to its promises, is this the time for inaction?
Superman doesn’t stop doing the right thing because people don’t always thank him. Batman doesn’t stop because he’s tired. Wonder Woman doesn’t quit because she typically goes it alone – and in heels!
A major point of the first “Black Panther” movie (I know, I’m switching publishers) was Wakanda deciding it owed the world a chance to benefit from the advanced technology the mythical country was able to develop away from threat of colonization.
So I guess the question is, is Black America taking a timeout to come back with a new, improved vision for the country or just line dancing and asking, “Where them fans at?”
Terry E. Manning worked for 20 years as a journalist. He can be reached at teemanning@gmail.com.
