"Make America Great Again" is popular rhetoric in modern American politics. This phrase begs the question, "When was America ever great?"
"In fourteen hundred and ninety-two Columbus sailed the ocean blue." This is my earliest memory of history taught in school--this and what was to follow--the slaughter of men, women and children who had occupied this land from birth.
I have never understood the European sense of entitlement to everything that could be conquered. I have never understood why I was supposed to be proud to be an American. This land was acquired through the terroristic tactics of lies, deceit, betrayal, murder and forced assimilation. Young men and women are sent into foreign lands to ensure "American Values", enforced by the continued white male power, while America leaves its veterans suffering and impoverished at home.
Slavery is incomprehensible to me. After slavery, lynching, and local and national Jim Crow Laws, as well as the absence of said laws, gave renewed life and power to the terror of white male dominance in America.
Every atrocity in this country has been caused by the system of white supremacy which include, but aren't restricted to genocide, slavery, illiteracy, poverty, decimation of the family, introduction of addictive drugs into communities, mass incarceration, international imperialism, consumerism, and the list goes on and on.
It seems as if the majority calling for America to be great again are white men and women. White women who agree that we should "make America great again" ought to recall the time when terror and subjugation were commonplace for them too. Voting, owning property or being professionals of any sort was denied by white men in power. Laws empowered terrorism in the home, against families, property, in politics and religion. In America's not so distant past of the 20th Century, white men could legally beat, rape and sell their wives and children. Women were denied divorce and when they were granted a divorce they were denied any property, including the children they themselves bore.
Theological ideas shaped by the perspectives of white men of European descent, for the benefit of white men have been presented as spiritual truths. Many of the atrocities suffered--from colonialism to Native genocide to slavery to apartheid have been in the name of the imagined white-male god.
While a war on poverty is needed, a war on impoverished people has been declared. To be poor and black or brown in this country is a double burden. The personal sentiment of Talented Tenth member W.E.B. DuBois, was that to be a poor man is hard but to be a poor race in a land of dollars is the very bottom of hardships. A majority of impoverished whites are so enamored with the hope of the salvation of white supremacy that they do not even recognize how American political and social systems contributes to their demise.
So, when has America ever been great?
To be great is to be exceptional, above ordinary, superior in quality or character.
By definition, America has never been great. In many ways, America is better than most. However, better than the worst does not make a country great. Although some would have us believe that we have come a long way, we must be woke to the fact that it is still legal to terrorize black, brown and impoverished people as well as white women today.
From "broken windows policing" to the modern lynching of black men and women at the hands of police, terror in America reigns. From impoverished Native reservations, many without running water or access to quality health care, education or viable career opportunities, to the assault against the brown immigrants and their legalized families, American terror reigns.
From inadequate and inaccessible health care to contaminated drinking water, American terror reigns. From illiteracy to the mass incarceration of its minority populous, American terror reigns. From no convictions for the state-sanctioned murder of black and brown women and men to the six-month sentence of an affluent white-male rapist, American terror reigns.
As black and brown people are more vocally and forcefully rising up to oppose systemic white supremacy, as even white folks are tiring of white folk's bullsh*t, the rhetoric against the value of black and brown lives grows stronger.
"Make America Great Again" is a call of action to return to white-male dominated rule, to normalize the terror which already stretches as far as the system will allow, and to empower women through misogynistic falsehoods. "Make America Great Again" is an appeal to the nostalgic feel of superiority that was secured by conquering everyone and everything in their path in order to legitimize and secure white male terror-dominance.
America has never been a great country. We are living on land stolen from the Natives, built on the backs of black and brown people who were stolen from other lands--whose blood yet calls from the soil.
America has never been a great country--it has always exploited the poor and weak for profit. America has never been a great country--it has always started and contributed to wars in order to reinforce and spread the tyranny of white male supremacy.
America has never been a great country--it has always done injustice, hated mercy and walked arrogantly without our God.
America is filled with great people who desire to do great things. America is not a great country, though, I believe that it can be.