America’s true life: A path forward from here | Opinion
In February, I wrote an opinion column titled “America’s True Critical Race Theory” in response to the political debate in Florida on this civic controversy. The column revisited a high school experience in the 1970’s when, during a band trip, I and a classmate were ushered out of the home of a host student because of our race.
I recalled the host student seemed to welcome the idea of getting to know my friend and I of a different culture, while his family clearly opposed this idea.
The column seems to have struck a chord nationally, having been referenced far and wide throughout the country. I wondered aloud in this piece whether the cultural, stereotypical, and racial biases of families such as our long-ago host family had persevered over generations to influence the culture wars of today.
In light of recent events and the emergence of the so-called “Great Replacement”, this initially rhetorical question must now be raised with sober focus.
A recent poll by the Associated Press and the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that one in three Americans believe some derivation of the Great Replacement theory. So, barely one decade since this formerly extremist, right-wing proposition emerged, which holds that immigrants and non-white citizens are engaged in a plot to displace the political power, the economic prominence, and the culture of white people in Western cultures, it apparently has moved to the mainstream of American psyche.
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I do not ignore the political actors, the talking heads, and others who are advocating this theory, with varied motives, generally stoking fear and trepidation within society. However, they do not gain center stage in this discussion – except to refer them to Psalms 94:1-15, and Isaiah 10:1-4.
Instead, the focus here goes to the dark bedroom of Payton Gendron, the 18-year-old young man who killed 10 people in a Buffalo, NY supermarket. Details of this young man, much from his own diary, suggest confusion about basic issues of history, and of race, and extreme vulnerability to rancid misinformation he found online.
In dark isolation, he anchored his thoughts and beliefs to the Great Replacement theory, and to the underlying cultural, stereotypical, and racial biases on which it relies. Growing up in a nearly all-white Conklin, NY, he lacked interracial and intercultural relationships and experiences that would counteract the extreme biases integral to the Great Replacement theory.
The Buffalo shootings, and others now frame a moment of reckoning for America. How substantial is the influence of extremism in American mainstream culture? Did it transform an impressionable individual into someone oblivious to humanity, who demonized skin color or culture? Someone who wantonly dispersed untold trauma into many family genealogies without thought -- so as to blindly uphold the sanctity of a “white” culture.
The positive comments received in response to my prior CRT article are, I believe, a more telling reflection of America. These responses confirm that America is better than the political theater which now surrounds us.
American society is not a mistake -- “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights…”. These words require a purposeful, intentional pursuit of an inclusive, democratic society. Though an admittedly difficult task given America’s incredible diversity, true Americans embrace this ideal to establish a more perfect union of peoples. The Great Replacement theory completely contradicts this premise, and the American ideal.
For me, the best life is one mapped out by my creator, God. It necessarily entails a diverse, inclusive and unified community. I posit that most Americans seek unity. We now must choose whether we truly believe the slogan placed on our currency because, it will take genuine trust in a supernatural power to achieve this unity in today’s contentious society.
This is our call to action.
Ennis Leon Jacobs, Jr., an attorney based in Tallahassee, FL, is a Chairman emeritus of the Florida Public Service Commission, and former member of the Florida Elections Commission.
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This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: America’s true life: A path forward from here | Opinion
