In light of recent events, it's time that I get a few things off my chest. Lately, I've been watching our nation in decline under the 'so-called' presidency of Donald Trump. I've seen it become a more hateful place, more of a narrow view of freedoms, and generally a 'less' American country than what I grew up in. This isn't what we're about in this nation. Hate, racism, and the overarching greed of capitalism have been with us from the inception, but those are the ideals of our nation.
I feel like I've got a somewhat unique viewpoint to consider. Yes, I am white. But, my roots are from Scotland and from the native peoples of America, either the Cherokee tribe. My grandfather's mother was a full blooded Cherokee, and my Father's family came from Scotland. Specifically, there were three brothers from the MacGregor clan that escaped to the New World to avoid death by the English, at least that's what I've been told for most of my life. So, as a white guy, my own heritage is persecution by Europeans, by the English Crown in Scotland when they apparently came to run the MacGregor's off their lands and forced three of those brothers to flee to the New World in the 1600's and change their names, and then again when a fledgling America couldn't find a way to live with the people who were already living in America when they "discovered" a new continent.
Fast forward to today when we're living with this idiotic racism as a part of our national dialogue, I'm left wondering what these 'white' people are thinking that their entitled to in this nation. They didn't build America, they stole it, killed women and children for it, and massacred the warriors who were defending their homes. The French, English, German, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italians all came to these shores, rounded up the native people and localized them in what amounted to concentration camps, much like what the English Crown did to the Scottish people under the guidance of Oliver Cromwell. I'm just wondering what any of these 'white nationalists' or 'supremacists' or whatever they want to call themselves are fighting for because this land has never belonged to them. The USA has been built on theft and murder. After stealing and killing from everyone in Europe, (I'm going to use 'whites' as a balloon term for all Europeans) the whites came to these shores and took this land from people who had a thriving civilization that was closely aligned with the Earth. They called those people savages, but they weren't savage until they were threatened. Much like the Scots who came under the rule of the English, they had a thriving culture until they were suddenly deemed savage by the the English.
What exactly are any of the White Supremacists under the impression that they deserve from these lands that they don't have any entitlement to? These are not their lands, and they never have been. This country isn't their "homeland" it's the domain of the Cherokee, Blackfoot, Iroquois, Cheyenne, and a thousand other tribes that were here long before the white man ever set food on these shores.
But, here we are in 2017, and the weight of history lies upon all of us. The whites brought other nations into the mix from other vibrant cultures that have been lost to history, and today in 2017's America we have a gorgeous mixture of all of those stolen cultures. At least we have that, in spite of all of the terrible things that man and woman have done against their brothers and sisters. And now, in this age, when you'd think we have advanced to surpass these narrow minded views, we have been thrust back into the same racial tensions.
As I've grown older, I've lived through times when I thought that we'd gotten past these tensions, but perhaps I was blinded to them. Perhaps these seething hates were being hidden in small towns bereft of sophistication, but not anymore. Under our recently elected mistake, Donald Trump, the racists and White Supremacists have found a new voice and permission to spout their hatred into the mainstream for everyone to see. They never went anywhere, but all of us were blinded by the illusion of the ideal of an America that worked for everyone, when in reality it wasn't working for anyone except the engines of control that drive us all to a weekly paycheck that is taxed to maintain this nation and it's inequality of race.
If anything good comes out of this Trump presidency, it will be a greater consciousness of this divide and a drive to get the ideals that fostered the creation of this nation correct as they were intended when this country was founded. We are all created equal. We all have a stake in this Earth, in this country, and we all want the same things. To live our lives, find some modicum of happiness and to love and be loved by our fellow humans. We don't come into this world with hate in our hearts, and we need to become conscious of when it's being ingrained into us by the very systems we create for ourselves to govern our world. If our government is fostering the hatred and divisions, then it is time to rethink our allowances of that government to control our lives. The current administration is such an example. It is fostering division and hatred, not just domestically, but internationally. It isn't working and we seriously need to rethink whether it is working for us all or not.
I feel like I've got a somewhat unique viewpoint to consider. Yes, I am white. But, my roots are from Scotland and from the native peoples of America, either the Cherokee tribe. My grandfather's mother was a full blooded Cherokee, and my Father's family came from Scotland. Specifically, there were three brothers from the MacGregor clan that escaped to the New World to avoid death by the English, at least that's what I've been told for most of my life. So, as a white guy, my own heritage is persecution by Europeans, by the English Crown in Scotland when they apparently came to run the MacGregor's off their lands and forced three of those brothers to flee to the New World in the 1600's and change their names, and then again when a fledgling America couldn't find a way to live with the people who were already living in America when they "discovered" a new continent.
Fast forward to today when we're living with this idiotic racism as a part of our national dialogue, I'm left wondering what these 'white' people are thinking that their entitled to in this nation. They didn't build America, they stole it, killed women and children for it, and massacred the warriors who were defending their homes. The French, English, German, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italians all came to these shores, rounded up the native people and localized them in what amounted to concentration camps, much like what the English Crown did to the Scottish people under the guidance of Oliver Cromwell. I'm just wondering what any of these 'white nationalists' or 'supremacists' or whatever they want to call themselves are fighting for because this land has never belonged to them. The USA has been built on theft and murder. After stealing and killing from everyone in Europe, (I'm going to use 'whites' as a balloon term for all Europeans) the whites came to these shores and took this land from people who had a thriving civilization that was closely aligned with the Earth. They called those people savages, but they weren't savage until they were threatened. Much like the Scots who came under the rule of the English, they had a thriving culture until they were suddenly deemed savage by the the English.
What exactly are any of the White Supremacists under the impression that they deserve from these lands that they don't have any entitlement to? These are not their lands, and they never have been. This country isn't their "homeland" it's the domain of the Cherokee, Blackfoot, Iroquois, Cheyenne, and a thousand other tribes that were here long before the white man ever set food on these shores.
But, here we are in 2017, and the weight of history lies upon all of us. The whites brought other nations into the mix from other vibrant cultures that have been lost to history, and today in 2017's America we have a gorgeous mixture of all of those stolen cultures. At least we have that, in spite of all of the terrible things that man and woman have done against their brothers and sisters. And now, in this age, when you'd think we have advanced to surpass these narrow minded views, we have been thrust back into the same racial tensions.
As I've grown older, I've lived through times when I thought that we'd gotten past these tensions, but perhaps I was blinded to them. Perhaps these seething hates were being hidden in small towns bereft of sophistication, but not anymore. Under our recently elected mistake, Donald Trump, the racists and White Supremacists have found a new voice and permission to spout their hatred into the mainstream for everyone to see. They never went anywhere, but all of us were blinded by the illusion of the ideal of an America that worked for everyone, when in reality it wasn't working for anyone except the engines of control that drive us all to a weekly paycheck that is taxed to maintain this nation and it's inequality of race.
If anything good comes out of this Trump presidency, it will be a greater consciousness of this divide and a drive to get the ideals that fostered the creation of this nation correct as they were intended when this country was founded. We are all created equal. We all have a stake in this Earth, in this country, and we all want the same things. To live our lives, find some modicum of happiness and to love and be loved by our fellow humans. We don't come into this world with hate in our hearts, and we need to become conscious of when it's being ingrained into us by the very systems we create for ourselves to govern our world. If our government is fostering the hatred and divisions, then it is time to rethink our allowances of that government to control our lives. The current administration is such an example. It is fostering division and hatred, not just domestically, but internationally. It isn't working and we seriously need to rethink whether it is working for us all or not.
