So we awoke to another day that the president is using openly genocidal rhetoric and there is seemingly no national reaction to stop him. Corporate news continues to normalize the unconscionable and both political parties applaud his growing list of war crimes. We are in the era that the USA has ripped its mask off and openly revels in its blood lust.
In the face of this complete depravity, it is en vogue for many leftists to claim that it is “our” actions that have led us here. “We” could act, but “we” refuse to. “We” choose this path. Now “we” must live with the consequences of “our” collective decisions.
Sure, the present is the result of history, of decisions made and effects that continue after those actions. Yet, I often wonder when I see this: who is this “we” that folks are talking about? Is it true we all wanted this?
I certainly did not want this. I know many, many others did not want this. I know many of us awoke today like other days in complete horror. I know many of us have put our bodies on the line to try to fight against this. I know many of us suffer from many mental health issues because it is hard to live with this.
I also know there are many in this settler empire that desire this. They want this. They cheer this on. They voted for this. They organized for this. They called on police and military to attack us. They moved law to make dissent illegal.
Am I a “we” with these people who refuse to see themselves as an “us” with me?
To be frank about it, I find the use of “our” and “we” to be completely disingenuous. There is no collective we in the USA. We are not a people. We are truly nothing. The reason “we” are here is in fact because “we” are not a country. Black people have been held captive within a settler empire structured towards world domination. I had no choice but to be born. I find myself in a settler empire where the majority support imperial capitalist control of the world. The collective I might identify with — black people, radicals, or black radicals — are all oppressed minorities that are deeply repressed by this settler empire.
I also identify with the African diaspora, colonized peoples, the planet, the universe, all living beings — each collectivities that are beyond a “we” because they are beyond political subjectivity. Yet, all of these collective beings — black peoples, radicals, living beings — all find themselves imperiled by the entity known as the USA. The USA refuses to see itself as a country that can include without superiority and ownership. In fact, the USA has waged active warfare against every entity I have named. The USA is among the greatest existential threats to black peoples, leftists, and all living beings on the planet.
So, since this settler empire has refused to see itself as a country with myself or any of entities I may identify with — why in the world would I identity myself as “we” with this country in the moment of its downfall? I don’t find solace or truth in the collective pronoun that signifies a country. I refuse the supposed truth of “I, too, am America.” I think there is a different way to inhabit that quotation and perhaps one day I will explore this other way. But when that line is used to signify my supposed allegiance to this country, then I must refuse it absolutely. I must refuse what has been refused to me.
There is no “we” with America. The impossibility of “we” is precisely why we are here. The moral stance does not get us further than navel gazing at our incompetence and impotence. We are not here because we all believed this was right. We are here because this country refused us — violently repressed us, segregated us, enslaved us, violated us, destroyed us, watched us, consumed us, and made sure that the vision of political freedom we demanded could never come to be in this country. We are here because this empire refused us.
So I refuse to take responsibility for this empire’s actions. I understand the desire to reckon with our collective responsibility. The hope is that if we speak in the language of morality, perhaps we can awaken a “we” that has not yet existed. Yet, this is not truth — it is merely a rhetorical strategy. The strategy is to place one’s own faults on the altar and hope that a personal reckoning can awaken the moral conscience of a nation. There is truth in it, but that truth becomes exceedingly empty in the face of an empire that still claims to be a nation. This is why I don’t think the moral register is helpful. It leads to a bunch of self-flagellation which ultimately leads one back to the self. The problem here is not the self, it is the lack of collective power. We must move beyond the particularly American obsession with the self.
The moralistic stance is the writing and rhetorical strategy that black people have employed over the years with the hope that by braiding our story into the fabric of the so-called nation, that the nation could be renewed. Black people must finally admit that this tactic has been a failure. On this note Kwame Ture, then Stokeley Carmichael, said poignantly,
“[Dr. King’s] major assumption was that if you are nonviolent, if you suffer, your opponent will see your suffering and will be moved to change his heart. That's very good. He only made one fallacious assumption: In order for nonviolence to work, your opponent must have a conscience. The United States has none.”
We have tried to awaken the moral conscience of the nation. It is time to admit there is no nation to awaken. The USA is not a nation. The USA is a settler empire that emerged from plantation slavery and settler genocide and then for a century dominated the world-system of capitalism with the petro-dollar. The dominance of the petro-dollar is crumbling and so the settler empire must use its horrific military power to settle its journey towards obsolescence. The USA was a capitalist project from the very beginning and will be so until the very end. There is no nation to awaken. The USA has never been a nation. We must reckon with that truth.
So no, it is not our fault that we are here. It is also not our fault that we currently are so disorganized that we must watch this crumbling empire make horrible decision after horrible decision. The moralist stance will not fill the emptiness of our gnawing sense of powerlessness. If we must reckon with anything, let us reckon with that.
Why do we feel so powerless? Why do we feel so helpless? What can we do about this feeling? Sit with that feeling and do not attempt to satiate it with morality. Truly sit with it. If you are honest, at the heart of this feeling, you will know the source is terror. Self-flagellation does not answer terror, it merely takes the whip out of the hand of the tyrant and takes on its task. In order to respond to terror, we will have to find the action to build a “we” beyond the boundaries of this setter empire’s fantasy of nationhood. We can be, but only if we refuse to be with this empire.