American Lies

I’ve spent the last ten years unraveling the lies that were taught to me, specifically focusing on Southern History in the last two years and what these lies have done to the American population, specifically white Americans.

Why? Because I am a white American - descended from English, Irish, Scottish, and Welsh folks over three hundred some years in this country. I’ve looked at myself as a case study because I know where I lack. Yet, I still have many a blindspot. So I invite you to point them out.

Welcome to American Lies. Born out of James Baldwins’ writings in “The Fire Next Time,” Tammy Triolo’s “The Empathy Gap: It’s Black and White”, and “How I Know White People Are Crazy and other Stories” by Dr Jonathan Mathias Lassiter, and of course, as mentioned, my own life.

“They [White Americans] are, in effect, still trapped in a history which they do not understand; and until they understand it, they cannot be released from it.”

James Baldwin wrote that, in The Fire Next Time. And I often meditate around this quote, but do not talk about the entire quote and today we’re going to talk about the entire thing. The rest is, “They have had to believe for many years and for innumerable reasons that black men are inferior to white men. Many of them, indeed, know better, but as you will discover, people find it very difficult to act on what they know. To act is to be committed, and to be committed is to be in danger. In this case, the danger, in the minds of most white Americans, is the loss of their identity.”

This is our first American Lie - the big lie. The origin story that has been passed down so many times and in so many ways, that white America doesn’t recognize it as anything other than just life.

One of the foundational lies of the United States was used to uphold a hierarchy created by plantation owners. The same lie used later by Lyndon Baines Johnson: “If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.” And of course held up with Ronald Reagan’s lie of the Welfare Queen.

But in the earliest days of colonisation in the United States, this was a lie born out of necessity, and designed to keep new colonisers and enslavement people separate.

African men, women, and children were brought to the shores of the Americas in 1619, surges of white European colonisers came in waves later. Was it because plantation owners wanted to share the wealth? Or was it because they were outnumbered? By men who were stronger than them, again, by design.

The call was made. Come to the new world! The land of milk and honey. You can make money here. Though again, I must stress, the plan wasn’t to bring all of these second sons up to the upper echelon. They just needed the safety in numbers.

So it began, the lie. In my mind, it went something like this:

New European to Americas, “Hi, good sir, plantation owner, my name is John and I see you have Black men doing a job I would like to. I am skilled, and could get it done quicker.”

Plantation owner, “Ah! Young John, hello, welcome to the new world. I have to tell you here, things are different. You’re a fine, upstanding young white man. I wouldn’t deign to give you the job that Black man is doing for free. That’s not a job in the new world for a fine man like yourself.”

Or maybe they put it more bluntly, but either way. The lie began. If Europeans had not desperately wanted into the club that was defined by new money. Had they banded together with men who didn’t look like them, and said, wait a minute, we want to have everyone compete for this job, and be paid the same wage. And a few tried.

In 1676, Nathaniel Bacon led a rebellion that was multiracial. Born in England, he absconded to the United States after a seemingly grey marriage that caused trouble in his homeland. He was educated at the University of Cambridge, well-traveled, and moved to Virginia colony in 1671. Bacon’s rebellion started in an effort to drive indigenous people out. Which cannot be discounted. While led by an Englishman, noble by birth, it included a multiracial group of people - men like Bacon himself, indentured servants, and Africans.

It led to Whiteness being legally defined in Virginia. Because it legitimately terrified this brand of new world aristocracy. Not a group led by birth, but by land ownership, and people ownership. This is the moment where whiteness was created - giving white indentured servants small but mighty legal protections that made them feel better about their place in the new world’s society, while pointedly explaining who was white and who was not. As a reaction to this rebellion, again born out of Bacon’s hatred for the indigenous, we see the first miscegenation laws. We see the hereditary nature of slavery put into law. We see an expansion of the slave codes.

Now, as a reader, you may be thinking, Amy, I couldn’t possibly be held responsible for what happened in the 1600s in Virginia. But this isn’t a lie that cannot be maintained without nurturing and nurturing it we have. For years to come, all the way up to the 20th and 21st centuries. Is it more covert? Yes. Is it easier to manipulate the public today? I believe so. We’ve already mentioned two Presidents reinforcing this lie in the last sixty years.

So let’s take a walk down history lane and look at some examples.

Some of the ways this lie is maintained is legally. Like redlining and the forced segregation of cities even where there was none. You can learn more about this, in the Color of the Law - one of the best books I read last year. This is a deliberate use of public housing to maintain the value of white property. If you study history, you also know that white veterans and Black veterans were not treated the same after World War II, but there were other courses of Affirmative Action exclusively for white Americans during this time as well.

The use of slavery as a weapon is another example. This is huge, of course, because we know that the majority of White Americans didn’t own slaves; however, every white American benefited from slavery and they all went to bat for it. Both in the Civil War and afterwards. Why did white Americans fight for a system that was harming them? Because we were over two hundred years into this lie. Again, using small legal loopholes to prove to white Americans they were different was key here.

The framing of the crack epidemic vs the opioid epidemic in my opinion is pretty self explanatory.

So, why did I tell the James Baldwin quote at the beginning because I need you to understand that for many white Americans, our identity is wrapped up in being “not them.” And many of us have no idea why - this lie has been perpetuated, nurtured, and continued for hundreds of years to the point that it’s enmeshed in our society despite being a lie. It’s impossible to escape it without pushing back hard at every turn.

We, white America, truly have no idea who we are. We’ll explore this more throughout this series, but to commit to changing this we’ll be on a journey of self-discovery and learning. With learning, comes discomfort, because we admit we don’t know everything.

I know we’re not a monolith, but I also know that not one single white person in America missed being hit by the system of white supremacy. Read that again. We’re operating in a system that we are born into, bred into, and raised in. A system with 400 plus years of inertia.

Maybe this is the idealist in me, but I know we can change this system to create something where we are all safe, loved, and can thrive. First, we have to understand who we are and why we are the way that we are.

Name the problem, change the problem.

Thanks for being here. If you want more on this topic, I’ll be posting long form to Youtube on Friday. And I have linked all of the books for you to read both in the writing and here. Join me on this journey.

You can find more of me on Youtube (where you’ll find the longform video of American Lies), at The Foolish Optimist, or on Instagram.