The year is 2026, and white nationalism swirls around us. Yet, an enthusiastic and targeted reaction exists in the country against any major attempts by proponents of white nationalism to carry out prejudicial programs or a greater separation of races. I further expect the reactive steps against white nationalism to be more assertive than any pronounced justification for an aggressive white nationalists’ agenda. Ironically, while I do not suggest that this prospect would be the likely outcome in every case, it is possible that any forceful advance by white nationalism could actually create momentum for a faster and more thorough implementation of the “For Racial Healing” protocol.
We’ve already noticed the resistance against the forces of white nationalism, as represented by the paramilitary corps known as ICE (U. S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement). This resistance has been rightly interpreted as a signal that white nationalism is, by its very nature, white supremacist and does not ultimately alter between variations of darker skin. Brown today; Black tomorrow.
I have written a triple haiku poem, contained in my book, Reading Whispers, Book of Triple Haiku and entitled “Race”, which begins with this haiku stanza:
“The skin is skin deep,
No farther into the realm
Of our conjecture.”
To go farther into conjecture beyond the reality that “The skin is skin deep” is to import a process that often begins with filiopietism and can then transform into white nationalism or some variation of the same. Now that we are witnessing a broad revulsion to ICE as a proxy for white nationalistic forces, we can envision and conclude that the energy and persuasion that have gone into the resistance can also be employed, on an individual basis, for the care of one-to-one, Black or Brown to white and white to Black or Brown allyship and acceptance of the protocol, “to understand, empathize, heal, love, and co-inhere”.
I have heard a complaint that the “For Racial Healing” protocol, which I have proposed in these essays, may be too much, too idealistic, and yet let’s look at the way locals responded to the ICE occupation of Minneapolis – whites to both Black (Somalis) and Brown (Latinos) represented individually-inspired protections of neighbor looking after neighbor, neighborhoods of one-to-one knowledge and love of each other. Why is what I’m proposing too much? It was a protocol that had to work in Minnesota.
By no longer relying on institutions to solve our nation’s racial ills, but by the adoption of the “For Racial Healing” protocol, an approach can then be employed for neutralizing the regrettable trends of separation that have continued between Black or Brown and white Americans. The country realized years ago that it had split apart philosophically: on one side were those who embraced pluralistic principles and a related agenda and on the other those who held a votary commitment to white-dominated nationalism. It is necessary to bear in mind that this philosophical division had its roots in the long-term separation of Blacks and whites.
This marked division between pluralism and white nationalism has expanded to an acute stage, especially from the group that retains an inviolate adherence to racism. For instance, additionally illustrative of the anger and hate routinely held against Blacks and Browns by white nationalists are the fires of discontent displayed in connection with presidential elections when white racists regularly claim, without foundation or justification, that fraudulent behavior exists among Black and Brown citizenry and associated voting blocks.
Today’s racism is a different kind of racism from that encountered in the past. Various legal and administrative barriers had measurably been broken through civil rights activism in the last century, and the old myths and vicious untruths about Black inferiority, for example, have finally been put to rest. Too much empirical evidence demonstrates that Blacks are not naturally inferior to whites, and the present is not the landscape that existed in the early part of the 20th century when Ivy League presidents, military administrators, and a batch of scientists opined that Blacks were not inherently equal to whites. Such a system of thought is not credible as a viable thesis.
Racists, as America has known them for much of the years of Black subjugation, are not racists in the same way today. Rather, those professing racism, now being unable to proselytize, for example, about Black inferiority, worry most about what happens to their little Bettys and Johnnies in such an unwelcomed environment for whites – at least as they see it. In this new environment, only a small, but vehement minority of whites still firmly believe in an outdated, systemic explication and methodology to defend blatant racism, but those who more subtly suggest they support racism do so, not because they believe racism is right and honorable, but because they’re fearful about what comes next. They simply don’t trust the future: what will be the white place, will whites have a place?
Those we know to be racists and those who consider themselves racists are now caught in a severe vise between the past and future, and the disconnection with the future they now feel is recognition that there’s no escape; it is evident that the real challenge to racists has now become fear in the face of accelerating time. This fear works to the advantage of our “For Racial Healing” protocol, but we must now make the effort to show those same racists that the only way out of the vise is to depend on authentic passion and those qualities that underlie one-to-one connections to each other individually (Black/Brown and white) to understand, empathize, heal, love, and co-inhere – in effect, to reach beyond ourselves to gain something greater than ourselves, impelling all of us beyond the formerly conventional, beyond what we have learned and need to unlearn in order to function adequately and freely.
Combining the acknowledged growth of pluralism, the continual progress of Black and Brown persons, and the further “darkening” of America, I definitely have reason to believe that there will be numerous, erstwhile racists, who will need to find, now and into the future, new conceptual chambers to place her or his loyalty. Part of my optimism rests on my conclusion that so many individuals in the United States are looking more energetically for ways that America disencumbers itself from 400 years of racist cruelty and self-inflicted evil against Blacks. As an example, I have already witnessed former racists espouse authentic passion as a welcomed alternative.
Unfortunately, while we may be optimistic about the active rejection of ICE and of related actions that intentionally work to separate whites and darker skin persons, one cannot fully or accurately forecast the outcome of social and political catastrophes, such as the inhumanity effectuated by ICE and similar, racist initiatives, which can have the metaphoric characteristics of a wildfire.
Next Time: New Venues, New Voices