E notes The Best and Worst of Times

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief of incredulity, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us,”

. . . A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens.

Set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution “A Tale of Two Cities,” is a historical novel published in 1859 by Charles Dickens. How familiar it sounds as we look around America and see the same parables of contrast and comparison to truth and ‘alternative facts,’ spoken and woven into the very fiber of our fastidious lives.

“America the Beautiful” has always been a paradox offering the promise of freedom, where all men are “created equal” and life, liberty and “justice for all’ is given to some and the denial of humanity given to others. America’s history is wrenched in slavery and cemented in the atrocious treatment of enslaved Africans who became African Americans, hunted by white supremacists and other White hate groups. How the beauty and the beasts, have managed years of coexistence is a mystery only ‘The Most High,’ can explain.

What we know to be true is that our beloved county is in decline socially, politically, physically, and most important, morally. With the 2008 election behind us, so many felt that America had turned a corner when Barack Obama emerged as President of the United States of America, the world’s most powerful country. Our lesson learned is that the thought of Obama leading “their” country and ‘the felt and orchestrated’ threat of Black power, triggered blue-collar white men and a dark sore began to fester and erupt. Surely this idea did not materialize out of nowhere.

It is the myth that white powerful people allowed to be perpetrated because it served them to have the two factions of poor Blacks and poor whites fighting for the little prize. The prize looked like jobs, schools, thriving communities, food, clothing, and shelter. These “prizes” become more apparent from the disparity of social, political, and economic opportunities. The two throwaways fighting over crumbs keeps the lower class manageable and exactly where the rich want them.

The 45th President of the United States recognized the scrab on that sore and reached back to Ronald Reagan who espoused

“Let’s make America great again” in his 1980 presidential campaign. At the time the United States was suffering from a worsening economy at home marked by stagflation. Using the country’s economic distress as a springboard for his campaign, Reagan used the slogan to stir a sense of patriotism among the electorate. He also deferred to the inner city where Blacks and other minorities lived as unsafe. During the 2016 electoral campaign, Bill Clinton suggested that Trump’s version, used as a campaign rallying cry, was a message to white Southerners that Trump was promising to “give you an economy you had 50 years ago and “move you back up on the social totem pole and other people down.” And it was. Reagan doesn’t get a pass. He conveyed the same. Both men were speaking in code to perpetuate fear and racism by convincing vulnerable white groups that Blacks are coming for their daughters and jobs.

Black Sci-Fi author Octavia E. Butler used “Make America Great Again” as the presidential campaign slogan for a character, Andrew Steele Jarret, in her 1998 dystopian novel, “Parable of the Talents.” Jarret is described as “a demagogue, a rabble-rouser and a hypocrite [who] pulled religion and government together and cemented the link with money from rich business owners.” Sounds like she was prophetic.

The takeaway is that we must seize control of our lives now to foster and grow healthy futures for this and future generations. We can no longer allow the singular thinking of leaders that do not include Blacks in their agenda other than to misuse and abuse us. ‘Making America Great,’ requires inclusion and equity if America is to survive and win. She must embrace and reckon with our solid place in America because we earned it more than so many others. We are a part of the American fiber. We must step up and foster hope and devise and implement a plan to manifest communities in which, hope lives.