KAMARA TAYLOR

Never in my lifetime have I seen so much division in a democratic country. I realize that in a society where we have allowed sound bites and hash tags to think for us, we have gotten lost in the translation of who we are as individuals. The far left or far right that shoots the sh** about politics and then throws the other side under the bus does not understand or care about the political implications that their rants cause.

Many individuals who hear this rhetoric cannot discriminate between information and disinformation, and they end up acting out linguistic forms of insanity through physical acts. Whether it’s bringing harm to others through words, pipe bombs or synagogue shootings, the shift in thinking makes the unacceptable acceptable – whether that is sexual assault from Supreme Court justices or others in power, these actions rationalize violence.

In my most logical brain, I cannot understand or give credit to a president for pushing this country into a downward spiral.

When building walls are cheered on but building bridges are frowned upon, when mass shootings are at a soaring 238 in America and nine in Mexico –– we should reflect on what democracy really means.

Kanye West indicated that Blacks should not use race as a means for self-destructive behavior. Statements issued from positions of privilege and capitalism remind us that “isms” are an illness that has manifested itself like the political flu. Can this internalization of making America great be rightly interpreted as keeping America divided?

The idea of the greatness of America came off the backs of division through slavery. No, slavery was not a choice or an option. It was forced through physical and mental tactics. The idea of this great America came from isolating poor European immigrants, calling Irish drunks, Italians gangsters and isolating Jewish Americans and Japanese Americans. This great America came from stealing the land of the original founders and saying that thanksgiving was a table of brotherhood. It came from isolating Arab Americans by using harsh language calling them terrorist. It came from discriminating against Mexicans by talking about building walls to keep them out. It came by labeling women of color as welfare queens and men of color as animals. It came at the cost of assassinations and murders such of those of Emmett Till, Medgar Evers, and King and the Kennedy’s. It came in the form of Jim Crow and the mindset of Bull Conner and mass incarcerations.

We have never been great. We were operating off of eight years of hope and change, not because we were a great country but because we were trying to escape a horrible past.

My country ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, for every man I see let freedom ring. How can we allow freedom to ring, the same freedom that King expected his children would see. The same America that beat us down because we refused to stand for a flag that symbolized 13 colonies that justified slavery.

I’m not a liberal or conservative, I’m not Democrat or Republican. Both parties have continued throughout history to cause harm and division.

What I am is an American by choice or force. I am an American and the blood I bleed is red after it is blue.

I understand that this is political propaganda, but we have to understand the damage that this rhetoric is causing.

Wake up!

Food for thought keeping it real.