XAVIER JACKSON
The mythology of American exceptionalism is one hell of a drug.
It intoxicates rich and poor, white and black, immigrants and native sons. A firm belief in American ideology drove Ho Chi Mihn to fight fiercely for decades to gain independence for his people. Our folklore as the ultimate underdog became entrenched when we opened a can on the British at Yorktown. America gained its independence. The myth was born.
Then the Founders took the time to bake an even more pernicious and destructive delusion into that mythology. They convinced everyone that America was a divine experiment anointed by the Almighty Himself. The idea that the American system is not to be questioned or even doubted is rooted in that delusion. If God is with us, then who can be against us?
Our collective inability and unwillingness to shed that delusion is slowly killing that ideal many of us believe in. Believing that America is a perfect nation because of God’s influence makes everything worse. Any concept of God should begin with love and tolerance towards all His creation. America’s past and present belies any national claim we may make regarding our connection to divinity. Any god who would sanction all of America’s endeavors could not possibly be a righteous god.
We have done plenty of evil. We need to stop blaming this current mess on Him.
The myth of American justice and fair play was so pervasive during the 1980s when I was a young man that I bought in. The people who raised me came from the deep south with nothing. All they ever knew of America was injustice and violence. They never bought into the “all men are created equal” lie. We were taught to never expect acceptance as equals. I wanted to believe they were wrong, but learned to endure mistreatment with the same dignified desperation they did.
Look on the back of any dollar bill and you will find the reverse side of the Great Seal of the United States. It consists of an unfinished pyramid beneath an all seeing eye below the Latin words, annuit coeptis. It translates to “He (God) approves our undertaking.” I chose to believe the pyramid was unfinished because America was intended to remain in a state of perpetual evolution under the divine guidance of a loving God. It gave me hope that my country would eventually live up to the ideals it professes to hold so dear.
America is my home and I do love it in spite of the open hostility it has had for me my entire life. I managed to get a solid education from public school and community college. I mixed that with hard work to create a good life for myself and the people who count on me.
All any of us should hope for is a shot at a comfortable life and I have managed to get that. Being smacked around by American life as a Black man has given me a realistic perspective and an unusually high level of determination that some experience as arrogance. Standing my life as a Black American male with dignity requires continuous, separate battles against the forces of evil. Any Black person who has been able to get theirs in spite of that struggle should be proud.
I will never lie down in the bed that was prepared for me. “We Eve’s kids! We don’t die! We multiply!” I am grateful for not being frail and impotent in life like so many people are today. Anyone can prosper here even if there are long odds against you. This is to America’s credit.
Providing for a family is a man’s job. It isn’t supposed to be easy, but it probably should not be this hard in the wealthiest country on the planet. It has become clear that almost every one of us could air a litany of grievances against how our group, the people we most identify with, have been treated in this life but we still bathe in the delusion. Those grievances have not been enough to shake most of us from the idea that America is still a just place filled with people who are guided by an abiding sense of righteousness and fair play because, God, right?
The United States of America has deliberately chosen the course of evil at many points in her history. Denying that fact does not make for a more perfect union. Legislating the truth out of our history, like they are doing in state houses and on school boards from coast to coast, prevents us from finding the courage to live up to our promise of seeking to do God’s will as a nation. It causes ignorance and hatred to proliferate because the most sinister intentions traditionally hide behind false projections of grace and declarations of righteousness. We who inhabit this nation need to accept it for what it is, deeply flawed, disconnected from reality and frequently in direct opposition to truth and justice.
More than half a million Americans lost their lives during the Civil War as a ransom for the crime of slavery. Subsequently we had a brief opportunity during Reconstruction to live up to the ideal of equality for all. Real progress was made for about 10 years, but when sustaining that progress got hard America dishonored the sacrifice of those precious fallen and abandoned the opportunity that had been so dearly bought. When faced with a historical moment to do the godly thing, America deliberately chose not to while still clinging to the delusion that this is a godly nation.
God does not approve of the naked racist dog whistle “Critical Race Theory” has become. He would never co-sign the greed and graft that saturates the halls of power in Washington D.C., Divine Grace and love are diametrically opposed to preying on the weakest of His creation and destroying the beautiful Earth he gave as a home for mankind in pursuit of the dollar. It is written that a fine tree can not produce rotten fruit.
Something is obviously rotten, and it is a lot closer to home than Denmark.
Our national descent into putrescence has accelerated in recent years. We allow the rich to subjugate the masses at levels of inequality previously unseen. A spirit of aggressive selfishness has infected Americans with a toxic, “every man for himself” mentality that is on display everywhere in our day-to-day lives. We glorify the ruthlessness of those willing to prosper at the expense of their fellows. Our belief in God only goes as far as our thirst for profit and power.
All we are exceptional at being is delusional about how exceptional we are, and God has absolutely nothing to do with who we have become.