Of National Lies and Racial Amnesia: Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama, and the Audacity of Truth
He noted that we killed far more people, far more innocent civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki than were killed on 9/11 and "never batted an eye." That this statement is true is inarguable, at least amongst sane people. He is correct on the math, he is correct on the innocence of the dead (neither city was a military target), and he is most definitely correct on the lack of remorse or even self-doubt about the act: sixty-plus years later most Americans still believe those attacks were justified, that they were needed to end the war and "save American lives."
But not only does such a calculus suggest that American lives are inherently worth more than the lives of Japanese civilians (or, one supposes, Vietnamese, Iraqi or Afghan civilians too), but it also ignores the long-declassified documents, and President Truman's own war diaries, all of which indicate clearly that Japan had already signaled its desire to end the war, and that we knew they were going to surrender, even without the dropping of atomic weapons. The conclusion to which these truths then attest is simple, both in its basic veracity and it monstrousness: namely, that in those places we committed premeditated and deliberate mass murder, with no justification whatsoever; and yet for saying that I will receive more hate mail, more hostility, more dismissive and contemptuous responses than will those who suggest that no body count is too high when we're the ones doing the killing. Jeremiah Wright becomes a pariah, because, you see, we much prefer the logic of George Bush the First, who once said that as President he would "never apologize for the United States of America. I don't care what the facts are."
But white folks have a hard time hearing these simple truths. We find it almost impossible to listen to an alternative version of reality. Indeed, what seems to bother white people more than anything, whether in the recent episode, or at any other time, is being confronted with the recognition that black people do not, by and large, see the world like we do; that black people, by and large, do not view America as white people view it. We are, in fact, shocked that this should be so, having come to believe, apparently, that the falsehoods to which we cling like a kidney patient clings to a dialysis machine, are equally shared by our darker-skinned compatriots.
These portraits of America are certifiable evidence of how disconnected white folks were--and to the extent we still love them and view them as representations of the "good old days" to which we wish we could return, still are--from those men and women of color with whom we have long shared a nation. Just two months before "Leave it to Beaver" debuted, proposed civil rights legislation was killed thanks to Strom Thurmond's 24-hour filibuster speech on the floor of the U.S. Senate. One month prior, Arkansas Governor Orville Faubus called out the National Guard to block black students from entering Little Rock Central High; and nine days before America was introduced to the Cleavers, and the comforting image of national life they represented, those black students were finally allowed to enter, amid the screams of enraged, unhinged, viciously bigoted white people, who saw nothing wrong with calling children niggers in front of cameras. That was America of the 1950s: not the sanitized version into which so many escape thanks to the miracle of syndication, which merely allows white people to relive a lie, year after year after year.
So what can we say about a nation that values lies more than it loves truth? A place where adherence to sincerely believed and internalized fictions allows one to rise to the highest offices in the land, and to earn the respect of millions, while a willingness to challenge those fictions and offer a more accurate counter-narrative earns one nothing but contempt, derision, indeed outright hatred? What we can say is that such a place is signing its own death warrant. What we can say is that such a place is missing the only and last opportunity it may ever have to make things right, to live up to its professed ideals. What we can say is that such a place can never move forward, because we have yet to fully address and come to terms with that which lay behind.
What can we say about a nation where white preachers can lie every week from their pulpits without so much as having to worry that their lies might be noticed by the shiny white faces in their pews, while black preachers who tell one after another essential truth are demonized, not only for the stridency of their tone--which needless to say scares white folks, who have long preferred a style of praise and worship resembling nothing so much as a coma--but for merely calling bullshit on those whose lies are swallowed whole?
Comment: For more on how Indians viewed America after 9/11, see Native Intelligence: The Long View. For more on our "us vs. them" mentality, see Terrorism: "Good" vs. "Evil."
4 comments:
Writerfella here --
The good Reverend Jeremiah Wright said what he said. Please note how quickly Barack HUSSEIN Obama sent the man packing to the back of the campaign bus...
All Best
Russ Bates
'writerfella'
Did he? Many people think Obama wasn't tough enough on Wright.
And why would Obama send Wright packing, if he did? Because people like you can't handle nuanced positions like Obama's? Because if you're not a rah-rah patriot, you're a terrorist and a traitor?
I don't recall your saying if you agreed or disagreed with the thrust of Obama's speech, Russ. So which is it? For once in your life, don't be an intellectual coward. Stand up and answer the question.
Writerfella here --
By YOUR own words, it is YOU who is the coward, Rob, for YOU remove any and all commentary that YOU decide is 'clutter' on YOUR blog. writerfella has a copy of the Bill Of Rights framed on his BatesMotel office wall. Right down its diagonal is a two-inch banner that says, "VOID WHERE PROHIBITED BY LAW"...
All Best
Russ Bates
'writerfella'
You dodged the question again, Russ? What a big fat chicken you are. Bawk!
No, I remove any comment where you lie about me. As you've done several times before.
To reiterate, I said I didn't want to clutter my blog with your lies. You must want me to keep calling you a stupid liar, because you keep lying stupidly.
Since you apparently want to revisit the subject, okay. Readers can peruse your lies here:
Russell Bates liar
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