All patriotism is not created equal. And as messy as it is to discuss, because it inevitably leads to incendiary comparisons and stokes racial rivalries, it begs to be acknowledged at times like this. America is entering the season of raucous celebrations of self-congratulation and this needs to be said: the distinction between white patriotism and Black patriotism is stark and instructive. This is another one of America’s inconvenient truths that we ignore at our peril. Trigger Warning: the analogy employed herein will be upsetting for some readers. While traumatic child abuse is not detailed herein, it is discussed. Because it has to be. The message being delivered would not be as poignant without it.
PART 1
America is a horribly abusive mother. The worst I’ve ever seen. And she has many children from many fathers; strategically dividing them into groups to maximize her ability to manipulate them. The group a child is assigned to defines her relationship with them. Like so many abusive mothers with children of different fathers, America shamelessly plays favorites. Privately delighting in her public denial that some of her children are yearning for the love she is cruelly withholding, she has mastered the diabolical art of gas-lighting: convincing her disfavored progeny and anyone witnessing the family dynamics that her neglect really is the children’s fault. Her story has always been ‘if they would just behave better and perform better, I would treat them better.’
With the precision of a Ninja, she plays favorites in ways calculated to be both shocking and subtle; depending on what meets the moment. Subtlety is the new default setting and is intentionally deployed slowly and steadily, like an I-V dripping hydration fluids into your veins in the hospital. Shock is the original factory setting, deployed to terrify and paralyze those posing a threat to the prevailing order.
The more subtle demonstrations of favoritism are the many mind-games she plays; deliberately designed and cleverly calibrated to pit the children against one another. Planting seeds of both belief and doubt about beauty and intelligence so that one set of children carries the presumption of appeal and the others carry the burden of otherness.
Mother-America’s mind games condition the children to believe they must fight each other for her attention and her affection. She is a lying bitch, so it has been fairly easy for her to convince them that she never has enough resources for them all to get what they need. Lack is one of her biggest lies, because in truth, she always has enough. And she is so talented at the art of deception that the children themselves have forgotten that everything she has was provided for her by them. The bounty of the table she sets that they are all supposed to share came from their labor. By any conception of equity and justice, no child should be left behind.
But we know Mother America does not get down like that. So unbalanced is the table she feeds her children from, that her favored few gorge beyond their limits while others go without altogether, nearly starving while sitting at a table overflowing with food. Their hunger pains are exacerbated by their realization that they sit right next to their well-fed siblings, some of whom have a share of food so grand they would need a thousand lifetimes to consume it all.
At best, America is a sorry excuse for a mother and should have been jailed for her conduct a long time ago. At worst, she is a demon at her very core and can never be anything other than that. Either way, she is what she is. Even when she shows signs of being a good mother, she reverts back to form. Those are the moments when her subtle displays of favoritism give way to the most shocking expressions: the outright violence toward her children. And true to form, one group in particular is singled out. These are her children she calls “Black.” And as widespread as her cruelty and abuse has been, those Black bastards of hers never escape her most bitter wrath.
When it comes to her Black children, she is guilty of every form of abuse we are familiar with, and likely some we have yet to discover. The archives are packed with grisly photographic proof. From wonton ritualistic violence, to pervasive sexual assault and exploitation, to weaponized neglect, to intentional emotional and psychological torment, Mother America’s Black children have caught hell from the very day we were born.
PART 2
Yet somehow, someway, we love her anyway. I am one of those Black children; I represent the 9th generation from my line on these shores, so I know Mother America as intimately as any of the legions of her offspring could hope to. I am well aware of the fact that my affection for America is literally ridiculous. As in worthy of being ridiculed. She has not earned it. She does not deserve it. Anything she has ever done for me should have been done; and based on what she has done for her other children who were similarly situated to me, she should have done much more.
In sum, I resent my patriotism. Deeply. I wish I did not have the peculiar emotional ties that periodically reveal themselves because I know that she has no similar affection or connection to me and mine. She proves this to her Black children by systemically suppressing any benefits we earn by virtue of being in this family. I’ll share something that is disturbing, provable, and broadly applicable: Every Black person you know who is well off would be rich but for their Blackness. Every rich Black person you know would be wealthy but for their Blackness. As for the wealthy Black people? There are too few to be statistically significant, no matter how much the media promotes their existence.
I am unafraid to call it what it is: Mother-America owes me and damned near everybody who looks like me. I know she’d rather die than hand over my fair share but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t have to hear me say it loud and long. I don’t care that it pisses her off. What the hell is she going to do? Treat us worse than she already has? Good luck with that, Mom.
But despite my harsh feelings and sharp tongue, I undoubtedly share the subconscious tendencies of most abused children. Like so many abused children, America’s Black children became convinced that we could make our mother love us. Then she might want to hug us and not let our cousins hang us. If we could just be better and do more we could eventually earn our abusive mother’s affection.
So we have joined her armed forces and fought in more wars carrying her flag than anybody else proportionally. I am sure there are many Black men who share a similar family history to mine; one revealing soldiers in every single war that America has ever fought- including the Revolutionary War. White soldiers fight for the country, Black soldiers fight Mother-America’s enemies to earn Mother-America’s acceptance.
There is no greater illustration of that dynamic than Denzel Washington’s Oscar winning portrayal of Trip in the 1989 Civil War epic and cinematic classic Glory. Of all the soldiers in the 54th Massachusetts Colored Regiment, the narrative made it clear that none of them had it harder than Trip did. A fugitive from enslavement with a back so scarred from years of abuse it was easy to overlook the scars on his soul. Trip was angry and belligerent with everybody all the time. He was embittered by his experiences, even suffering the pain and humiliation of a public whipping after he became a soldier in the Union Army.
But when the chips were really down, and the war was raging all around him, and the American flag had fallen to the ground, Trip picked up the flag and led the regiments final charge against Mother-America’s most unfaithful children. Trip died facing his enemy in defense of his… mother.
That character symbolizes what I believe all Black people know at our core, even if we resent and reject the knowledge. The most human reflex we have is loving our mother. We come into this life needing that love to help us sustain the shock of those cold first breaths and bright first beams of light to hit our eyes. Our love for her is born into us and needs to be returned; and our love doesn’t die just because that never happens. It may sour or spoil in our souls, but it does not die. The most prideful of us dig our heels into a determination to never ask for it, lest we expose the kind of weakness that an abusive, lying, manipulative mother will surely exploit somewhere down the road.
But she’s all we’ve got. America is the only mother we have. And contrary to popular 1960s folklore, Africa is not our motherland. It is our fatherland. Africa shot its powerful seed over the seas and across the ocean, and planted it in the fertile soil of America. And we were born. Unlike the rest of our sibling groups here (save for the indigenous tribes) America is truly the only home we have. I embrace my African blood and identity but America is the only home I know.
How miserable is an existence where you have no love for your home? So we find something to love and hold it tightly. Much like children who scream and cry when the courts remove them from an abusive mother, America’s Black children remain attached to her. We reflexively defend her against outside attacks and inside infidels. We continue to believe that if we keep giving her the best we’ve got, she will eventually give us the best she’s got.
But our feelings are deceiving us. Like all abusers, she is not tormenting us because of who we are, but because of who she is. Even our siblings who see our predicament and want to intercede can’t change who Mother America is. The best they can do is try to reject her affections as reprisal for what she has done to us. And that’s a damned heavy lift so we can’t expect them to hold that up forever. It is bitterly cold living in the shadow of her neglect, especially if you’ve been used to the warm sunshine of her acceptance. So even our siblings who may be trying to help us aren’t trying to join us in this miserable relationship.
So Happy Memorial Day. And Juneteenth. And, of course, Independence Day.
This post originally appeared on Medium and is edited and republished with author's permission. Read more of David Saint Vincent's work on Medium.