Is the USA Racist?

 

            Another widespread leftist lie defiles the populace’s conception of their nation, by leading citizens to believe an original and unique sin plagues it. Inversely proportional to a subscriber’s confidence in the deception is (not surprisingly) their aptitude for discerning truth from propaganda.

Specifically, that propaganda designed to diminish a broad sense of patriotism and cultural nationalism, for the sake of an idealized and vague sketch of democracy as the solution to all forms of interpersonal coercion and domination. Compared to the precise reasoning, structure, and protocols of the Constitution and other founding documents, the leftist propaganda (most clearly exemplified by the deceptive work of Howard Zinn) is, at best, an abstract ideal of a utopian society. Such an ideal, employed to uncompromisingly judge all present social systems according to its illogical, nebulous, and self-serving proclivities, is unprepared to offer any semblance of reliability in any form of decision making, especially public policy.

Countering this thread of reasoning amounts to noting the virtual consensus, across both major political parties, regarding the certainty of the nation’s egregious and inherent racism (among many other styles of bigotry). Taken for granted, like the air we breathe, is this supposedly undisputable cultural milieu of an implicitly racist present rooted in an explicitly racist past. Following the disruptive and violent uprising related to apparent police misconduct, echoes of the Critical Theory literature, that range over a quarter-century, began to forcefully reverberate across the gamut of mainstream culture and media. Soon after, conservatives started referring to America’s apparent inherent and problematic history, tradition, and culture; notwithstanding the possibility they’re paying lip service to the leftist cancel culture mob. The political, social, and cultural spheres started to reflect an awareness of the supposed current unconscious racism (microaggressions) and a hope for restorative justice that’s merely expressed as leftist platitudes.

Collective memories of racial issues are branded by images of firehoses, police dogs, lunch counters, acts of civil disobedience, white hoods, nooses, etc., thereby obfuscating the richly nuanced and not easily pigeonholed history. Three particular instances illustrate this point: the first martyr of the American revolution was a black man killed by the British while fighting in the Boston massacre; the first self-made female millionaire was a black woman who started a company specializing in hair care products; the demonym for Indiana, Hoosier, was a reference to the name of a black evangelical preacher that helped convert the frontiersmen who settled along the Ohio river and founded the state. Levels of ignorance this potent are not an accident, by any justifiable standard. Facts, such as the three above, would have radically changed race relations if widely known about (as they deserve to be). Regardless of this untold nuance, one might add, its proliferation wouldn’t detract from the hard facts of slavery, legal discrimination, and other (Democratic party) efforts to disenfranchise blacks. Leftists reckon, acknowledging those facts concedes America was and is irrefutably racist, despite the racial nuance indicated above.

Answering the question of whether America is racist requires a definition of America itself. How this nation is defined will determine the answer to the issue of inherent racism. Ostensibly, people in general assume a nation is an aggregate of its people, laws, and institutions. Implicit conceptions of America are no different, suggesting people equate the USA with whatever the qualities of the people (general attitudes and culture), laws (of the given time period), and institutions (education, markets, tradition, etc.). Specious ideas such as these are insidious for their banal apprehension and ubiquity, facilitating the incremental eroding of our core understanding of what America is principally about. Through the creation of a circular definition of America, assuming it to be both a description and an outcome, the follies common to humanity can be unrepresentatively projected onto the idea of America itself. Hence, an alternative, yet authentic, definition of America, not tied to the whims of the present situation, is needed.    

Before exploring sources of an objective standard for America, a case must be offered for why an objective standard is superior than a subjective standard (such as the triad above). In addition to a circular definition, standards based on subjects are unique to them. That is, the subject is the source of content for the definition, allowing definitions to change between subjects. Even if one were to cluster and find enough commonalities for a generalized definition, such an assemblage would then vary over time, rather than between subjects. Moreover, absent an objective definition, criticism is tolerated without limitations or ultimate goals. Lacking a stable grounding, a definition tolerates the dearth of any justifiable and reliable boundary. Immutable parameters to a definition grant the ability for one to distinguish between valuable criticism (aiming to further an explicit understanding) and destructive criticism (intending to merely destroy and replace the definition).  Since objective criteria are revealed experientially across subjects, one is reasonably unable to determine or dismiss them. Therefore, objective criteria are an effective way to identify and cease destructive criticism.

In the context of America’s definition, destructive criticisms would be exemplified by Marxists and other political radicals, seeking revolution through resistance and struggle. Groups such as these exploit our open system of discourse, aiming to seed delusions which cause resentment, especially in the young and idealistic. By misrepresenting their true destructive intentions as the uniquely American virtue of criticizing the government (codified as the first amendment), the detection of their incremental dismantling of the public’s patriotic and cultural nationalist ideologies are obfuscated. An apparent virtue becomes the tool to diminish and destroy an actual virtue. Yet, a grounded definition of what America truly is can dissuade those attempts to underhandedly dismantle our beliefs, laws, and institutions. Furthermore, that grounded definition is the prime target of post-war Marxism. The Frankfurt school (cultural Marxist academics) targets ideology, unlike the focus on labor of previous Marxists. Fortunately, the radical’s target of these adamant efforts reveals a source for our objective definition. It follows that, the radical’s target for the destruction of America is a reasonable foundation to consider for America’s definition.

Our beliefs, laws, and institutions are the prime targets of radical groups, most prominently Marxists. Of these three, one offers a clue to help find a source of an objective standard for America’s definition. Contrary to beliefs and institutions, laws are codified in writing and displayed objectively within archived documents. Despite the changing nature of the legal code, the statutes are grounded in a way to render distortion or replacement as obvious. Once something is written down and copied as is, devising misleading strategies turns out to be impractical, granted by the shared distribution of the original text. Nonetheless, expected changes in legislation leaves them unsuitable as a reliable and objective standard. Providentially, the genesis of the nation bestows several invariable founding documents. Included in these are the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Federalist papers. Undeniably, these documents are referred to as the country’s framing, providing a suitable source for an objective standard to define America. America is the ideal articulated in its founding documents, thereby answering the question, of whether America is racist, in the negative.

Without a doubt, the values contained within these founding documents were radical for their time. Until then, politically affirming the inherent rights of all people was unheard of in history. Still, one could point out the gap between those ideals and the people themselves, to discredit those ideals as hypocritical. To the contrary, this gap is key to why America is exceptional among the nations of history. Although many past citizens did not live up perfectly to these ideals, the attempt to close that gap had caused all the difference. That is, because the definition of America is a set of lofty ideals, rather than the country’s present situation, an awareness was fostered for the desire to improve, regardless of not reaching perfection. Despite not living up to that set of ideals, America’s founders were the first politicians to codify that truth after discovering it. Thus, a culture and society were created around closing that gap. Efforts for social justice, inspired by the assumption of it as a self-evident moral virtue, were created by these ideals. Thus, racist attitudes (and other socially endemic bigotry) that plague some citizens, are no influence on the objective standard of America’s definition, set by the ideals of liberty and justice, enshrined in its founding documents.

America never was, is, or will be racist, if and only if the constitution is the highest law of the land…