It is not easy for America to sort it all out when police openly commit widespread racial profiling of Black lives and gratuitous violence on Black bodies, and so many white folks fail to object to the fact or even acknowledge it.
It is not easy for America to sort it all out when the president of the nation ignores the evil inherent violent demonstrations by neo-Nazis, white nationalists, and xenophobes, and equates them with the peaceful protesters and defenders against of their hate.
It is not easy for America to sort it all out when the president attacks NFL players moved by the oppression of their brothers and sisters to express openly their concerns in a peaceful symbolic way in the only public forum they have. (I could shout from my rooftop, but nearly no one would hear – it is, after all, about being heard.)
It is not easy for America to sort it all out when the president demands that team owners fire any player who exercises his first amendment rights with a peaceful gesture in a public setting. No such scorn is expressed for racist Nazi violence.
It is not easy for America to sort it all out when old imaginary rights of owners to dictate all behavior of their employees, including political expression, dominate political discourse while images of master and slave still permeate the air, and their confederate symbols grace the public square.
It is not easy for America to sort it all out while racism, misogyny, and myriad rituals of denigration and degradation emanate from the nation’s highest office, in a White House built by slave labor and occupied by oligarchs.
It is not easy for America to sort it all out when we have to face barbarity, brutality, dehumanization and destitution of our citizens and so many others, so that the super-rich political donors can demand big tax breaks from their lackeys in a plutocratic congress.
Grace Galore (in a Facebook post) put it this way:
I would take a knee for the police brutality and racial profiling my father, uncles and brothers have faced.
I would take a knee for the mass deportation during the Great Repatriation of California during the Great Depression that my ancestors faced to make room for white labor in California.
I would also take a knee for the cancerous pesticides dumped on our farm laborers everyday to keep wages down and your food prices too.
I would take a knee to stand against the golden calf that is a song or flag or emblem, not impenetrable or holy.
I would take a knee for the hypocrisy of our system to keep the low, lower, under the facade of patriotism.
I would take a knee for this country, which is much better than all the privileged and blind “sons of bitches” who venerate a song over humanity and righteousness.
I am America. Take a knee for me…
Robert MacNeil Christie, Author 