Who is us? DoY 028

Us is white supremacists.  Us learns it at our granddaddy's knee, and our granddaddy is the most gentlemanly, most real-manly man we know.

But white supremacy is avowed also by our uncles.

I want to say "No!  No!  No!  No!  No!"  For a lot of reasons.  I want to absolve my granddaddy.  I can't.  I want to absolve my aunts, and I don't remember learning it explicitly from them, but like so much of what went on at the time - 1954, let's say - they went along with it, good women, good citizens, good conformists.  I want to absolve black people, but they were terrorized into accepting it.

It's just part of who us is.

I would like to absolve the hippies, but suspect they were oblivious to it and bore it like they bore white privilege.  Poor children!  They really believed the ennobling and generous descriptions of us that us had taught them!  They somehow thought they could just excuse themselves from us and live like us had said us did and us would leave them alone, maybe even support them in admiration!  Us taught them!  Us beat the bejesus out of them!  Us killed enough of them that the rest went into hiding, or gave up and conformed like the rest of us.  Us took care of them!

Now you may not have learned it from your granddaddy.  You may have learned from your daddy or your momma, but you learned it.  Else how would it still flourish?  I didn't do it all, and it plays a major role in what makes up the Trump-folks.  Trump didn't do it, he just gave them presidential permission, and they eagerly accepted.  He saw them lurking in the shadows and invited them into the light, and here they are - us.

What was it Wordsworth promoted?  Writing after quiet contemplation, writing calmly and carefully.  I ain't there yet.

Learning how strongly white supremacy burns in me embarrasses me.  Learning that I can't just deny it revolts me.  I think I live as if I had none.  This is an improvement over my uncles and granddaddy, I think.

But I don't know, I don't know.

I do know us is white supremacists, and us needs to not-be, and I don't know how to get us there.