Almost as soon as Christopher Columbus landed in the New World, he set about enslaving and killing off the indigenous peoples. Among the cruelties visited upon the natives was the imposition of Christianity, further strengthening the stranglehold of the invaders upon them, undermining their culture and their far superior sense of spirituality. Once the White Christians arrived, they considered the Western hemisphere to be their rightful property. After all, God had proclaimed it to be so.
If ever, there was a need for a strong anti-immigration policy to this land it was back then.
Unfairness is a reality of our history that is undeniable. But since we have to protect the sensitive progeny of the invaders from feeling, God forbid, guilty, the true story is being deleted. As dictatorship replaces representational government, revisionist history is replacing reality in schools and museums, in public discourse and in official government policies and publications.
The truth remains. Racism, inequality and unfairness have been embedded in our culture from the get go. Thus, White Christians maintain their dominance, retaining favored access to power, opportunity, wealth and employment.
For a short time in recent history, some of the strictures that had been placed on full participation and equality for minority groups had softened. Equality became more than empty words. It became policy.
That would not do.
Now the White Christians, faced with the potential loss of their privileged position, promote the absurdity that they, themselves are victims of discrimination. To them, fair is indeed foul. Under the current racist administration, they are rapidly restoring the unequal state of affairs that they had enjoyed for so long.
It might give one pause to consider that, despite the unfairness, members of the oppressed groups, who should be resentful enough to have no interest in fighting our wars, have fought in them willingly.
Just looking at World War II, we see that indigenous Americans played an important role, helping us to defeat Germany and Japan by creating an unbreakable code based on the Navajo language. Despite the fact that Japanese American citizens were thrown into concentration camps by the thousands, a company of Japanese American soldiers contributed to victory in Europe and the Pacific. Despite being treated, even in the military, under Jim Crow rules, Black Americans fought heroically when the nation needed them. The thanks they get? Their sacrifices are being deleted from our historical record.
Again, I wonder, why would they fight for this land?
My sense is that they were motivated by the “melting pot” myth and the purported principles on which the nation was founded, the notion that all men are created equal. This notion is so powerful that even in the face of its failure to deliver, abused minorities were willing to sacrifice their lives in the hope that the promise would someday truly come to fruition. Their heroics are a reminder of what truly has made this nation great, a concept, an ideal, one that despite its many failures to be fulfilled, inspired even those who have no reason to love this land to fight for it.
Recently, as a result of anti-DEI hysteria, the website of the Department of Defense was purged of references to many minority heroes who devoted themselves to the defense of the nation that had treated them so poorly. The lame rationale? That to recognize the contributions of nonwhites somehow diminishes the contributions of the Whites.
Of course, if we are ever to become the nation we claim to be, the opposite should be the case, but, as decades of progress are deleted from the historical record in a matter of mere weeks, what are the chances of that happening any time soon? Or ever?
An Author's Inner Mind 