every day we are being scared out of our
wits and if we’re not careful our
democracy will become a casualty it used
to be that the things that scared us
were kept in the tabloids movie idols
who became zombies kittens that killed
alien babies brainwashing and the
scariest of all stars without makeup but
now with the advent of social media and
the 24-hour news cycle we can be scared
out of our wits every minute of our
waking day we can seek out what scares
us and we can spread our panic how did
the home of the brave become so fearful
now don’t get me wrong people can be
scared about a lot of things loss of
income health threats the unknown
failure but when there becomes the state
of the nation when we are encouraged to
fear the very diversity that makes us
strong then democracy is an endangered
species as a professor of English and
African American literature and African
American Studies I asked myself why in
the 21st century are we experiencing a
fair backlash as a mother sending a
child out in the world I asked myself
why in the 21st century after
integration after multiculturalism after
the election of a black president are we
experiencing a fair backlash and then it
came to me that these questions were
older than the nation itself we are
fearful because we keep telling
ourselves the same
story that there is a we made up of real
Americans who have to protect themselves
from a bay you know those people sadly
history art culture politics law all
encourage us to think of this we as
white and that poses problem for a
nation that was multiracial from the
beginning but let’s take a look back and
see how all of this came about this we
they narrative is older than the United
States and it has its roots in cultural
difference social power and control the
Age of Exploration brought many
different people into contact and race
myths circulated widely by the time
English Voyager set sail for what would
be the United States race myths gave
them belief in their own superiority not
only over Indians and Africans but also
over Irish wealth scots
and any other european ethnicity they
thought beneath them but as English
settlements expanded because of the
taking of Native American land and as
African labor was brought in to work
that land the English realized it might
be a good idea to have other European
ethnicities buy into their we and so a
narrative began how do you make sense of
an ethnic hodgepodge various European
ethnicities trying to be one unified
country how do you make wealthy
Englishmen feel that they are the same
as the Irish Welsh and Scot who they
thought were beneath them and suitable
only to be servants how do you persuade
indentured servants that they should
join with wealthy Englishmen even though
their lives are not much better off than
the Africans who were in
the only way this could be done the only
way unity could be created along groups
divided along lines of ethnicity and
class is through the creation of a scary
we hear of these pilgrims who set sail
and with the grace of God as they sought
religious freedom landed on the shores
of an unforgiving land and conquered it
but even from the beginning fear of
those not like them was the undercurrent
of this story
Indian captivity narratives painted
Native Americans as savage and
bloodthirsty sermons treatises framed
Africans as inferior and assured
European indentured servants that
because their skin was white they would
never be enslaved for life soon the
labels of English Irish Welsh Scots fell
away and were replaced by another term
white and it wasn’t long before that
term was made synonymous with a new one
American as the colonies merged into a
nation who was to be part of this we
these real Americans were hotly debated
should we be only wealthy English
merchants and planters yeah population
numbers made that impossible should we
incorporate indentured European servants
a dangerous possibility given class
warfare but maybe the least of the evils
when you think about Indians and
Africans what was to be done with Native
Americans moved them westward and
Africans imported with the slave trade
make them slaves for life because their
labor was making the new nation very
very rich the people we call the
founding fathers fretted over the new
makeup of this new nation Benjamin
Franklin worried about German immigrants
and was saddened that the number of
purely white people in the world was so
so small being a slave holder
as Jefferson trembled when he thought
about the aftermath of slavery in no way
could he see blacks as part of his Union
but demographics were never on
Franklin’s or Jefferson side because
from its beginnings as settlements as
colonies the United States was always
multi racial but a massive cultural
machine made up of books newspapers
magazines museums theater even household
objects combined to disseminate the
false equation that white equals
American just look at this 1893 Chicago
World’s Fair poster that shows a white
Uncle Sam and his white partner the
goddess Columbia giving permission for
various European ethnicities and races
all over the world to enter the miracle
that is America the whitening of
American identity and popular culture
was dangerous but even more dangerous
was when that whitening was made into
law think about the real-life effects of
the various statutes that I’m about to
speak about the 13th amendment did and
slavery but it left a clause that anyone
convicted of a crime could be reinstated
that opened the door for states to enter
to Black Codes and what one historian
calls slavery by another name the many
editions of the Chinese Exclusion Act
were motivated by fear of Labor
competition and race mixing when Japan
bombed Pearl Harbor Franklin Roosevelt
signed executive order 9066 and
incarcerated people of Japanese descent
62% of which were American citizens and
the house on American Affairs Committee
they blacklisted authors writers artists
athletes and essentially put creativity
the equating of Wii and American makes
our present look too much like the past
with a few edits warnings against
communists becomes warnings against
1950s civil rights workers 1960s Vietnam
War protestors 1970s gay rights
advocates in 2016 just months after the
election was over federal raids targeted
people believed to be in this nation
illegally but legal residents were
caught up in the net as well many
cowered in their own homes across the
nation we are better than this there can
always be galvanized to make some group
of a but because the equation of white
and American was problematic it has
always been contested even by those who
would have benefited from white
privilege while Franklin and Jefferson
worried about the presence of different
races and ethnicities in the new nation
politician Abraham Bishop wrote we did
not say all white men are free but all
men are free the equation of white and
American may have solved problems for
those in the past but it is of no use to
us today that equation is the threat to
our national security one might be
tempted to say that our newest they are
Mexicans or Muslims but the funny thing
about they is that as a category it
changes shape constantly on Monday they
might be Arab women in hee jobs on
Tuesday Latinos at a bodega on Wednesday
black men in hoodies on Thursday white
women in pink hats on Friday queer
partiers at a nightclub and on Saturday
Native Americans trying to protect
sacred land the many arguments we have
about equal access
and immigration laws happen because some
don’t realize that the United States was
never a white nation many races many
ethnicities many lived experiences went
into its making all of us now must check
fair at the border we must take down
walls that do not allow us to see lives
beyond our own we must silence the white
noise of fear because it confines us on
plantations in internment camps and
detention centers in the prison
industrial complex there never allows us
to be our best selves never allows us to
see how connected we all really are it
closes minds to reasons hearts to
empathy and a nation built on democratic
principles is too precious to be undone
by fear if we must then something let’s
ban fear it has no place in the future of this nation