“Our nation is witnessing a merciless campaign to wipe out our history, defame our heroes, erase our values and indoctrinate our children.” Guess what? I agree completely.
Many in this country insist mercilessly, at any cost up to and including terrible violence, on ignoring the realities of slavery, genocide, and continuing white supremacy that are unfortunately part of the truth of our history.
They defame American heroes like the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. with lies about communism back in his day, and like Patrisse Khan-Cullors, Alicia Garza, and Opal Tometi who founded #BlackLivesMatter with lies about “reverse racism” today. They lie to excuse the murders of those whom they make into heroes and martyrs like #BreonnaTaylor and #StephonClark and far too many other names-become-hashtags whose killings were ruled justifiable. They have lied for centuries about the supposed savagery of heroic Indigenous leaders who stood up for their peoples’ rights and land and humanity, from Wounded Knee to Standing Rock.
They erase our values of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness when they refuse for decades to pass anti-lynching laws. They erase our value of justice when they refuse to press charges for months in the murders of #ElijahMcClain and #AhmaudArbery and, again, a list of thousands of names known and unknown. They erase our value of democracy when they suppress voting rights by reducing a majority-black city to a single polling place. They erase our “family values” by putting children in cages and attempting to rip away health care in a pandemic.
They indoctrinate our children by sending them to schools named for literal traitors to our country who took up arms against our government specifically and avowedly to fight for white supremacy and the enslavement of Black Americans. And by refusing to allow children in those schools to be taught the full truth of our history.
He spoke those words as a lie. But every word is true. And I will never stop fighting for a future where our nation finds a new and truer pride in healing the hurt at the heart of our history by telling the truth today.
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