Hypocrisy, Hostility & Hate: Exploring America's Identity Crisis

"My people."  Just who are my people, exactly?  Where is my "home" if my ancestors come from as many diverse & far-flung parts of the planet as there have been wars in our nation's history?  If my ancestors include both runaway slaves & sadistic slave-owners?  Both Native Americans & the monsters who stole their land, gifted them pox blankets & introduced them to the firewater that now plagues their people?  

One of many interesting finds on Ancestry.com...

...and another from the same side of the family.  

Thus is the conundrum for Americans, many of whom share a similarly mixed background & elusive ancestral history.  (I actually have one "branch" of my family tree that is tri-racial--Black, white and Native American all in one--hailing from the Appalachias during the height of slavery.  Genetic tests recently revealed that these people, who were once referred to as the "Last Lost Tribe of America," descended from a rare consensual relationship between a free Black African male & a white European woman before slavery).  For centuries people speculated about what exotic race these folks might be: everything from Greek to ancient Phoenician to Egyptian, Jewish & Portuguese was tossed around.  When they found out the truth--that it was actually just the 3 races that were already here when the country was founded--there was a ton of backlash & denial.  I even recall that a couple of the amazing people conducting the DNA tests received threats that they'd "better not find any African DNA" or similar.  Sad, but not surprising in this lovely "melting pot" of hate.   

People from other countries laugh at our "obsession" with genealogy & mock our desire to identify ourselves by race/ethnicity, but we're the only country on Earth where the entire population (save for the few remaining Native Americans) are from places OTHER THAN HERE.  A country of destination rather than origin.  Black people generally don't know which part of Africa they come from but neither do whites, who often have ancestors from all over the UK as well as other parts of Europe like Russia, Germany, Italy, Greece, Norway, the Netherlands or Sweden.  Ethnic purity is non-existent in anyone who's been here more than a couple generations because NONE of us is entirely from any one country.  If you disagree, hop on FamilySearch.org or Ancestry.com and you'll learn differently in a hurry.  And surprise:  Many "white" folks are nothing of the sort, actually consisting of a much more mixed racial makeup than they know or acknowledge.  They mock Blacks for the "we wuz kangz" thing while unironically jacking off to "Western culture" & claiming the historically racist Confederate flag represents "heritage, not hate" & pretending to have "Viking blood".  {Snort}.

When you go to Finland, you'll find Finnish people.  In China, Chinese.  In Ireland, you're surrounded by Irish folks and Nigeria is brimming with Nigerian people.  But in the U.S, you get "Americans," all of whom live in the same land but may speak different languages & regional dialects, worship different gods (if any), have (wildly) different skin tones, political beliefs & lifestyles.  We're a giant social experiment and so far it hasn't gone well.  From slavery to neo-slavery to the Trail of Tears to the 2017 "Unite the Right" rally in Charleston resulting in 1 death & many injuries to our current treatment of Mexican immigrants, the U.S. has a serious racism & xenophobia problem. 

But it doesn't end there, because we also have colossal disagreements about religion and its place in society, from battles over prayer in school to Christian terrorists bombing abortion clinics in the name of "God," which rivals some of the Taliban's Greatest Hits in terms of violence & barbarity.  Ironic since this country was founded on the basis of breaking away from monarchy to establish religious freedom. 

And misogyny + its ugly mutant cousin homophobia are an ever-present spectre haunting the land.  The U.S. is a hyper-masculine, warlike nation that has never had a female president in its 200+ years.  The one time we did seriously try that, chants of "Lock her up!" echoed through right-wing rallies in a way that felt like a run-up to the Salem Witch Trials 2.0.  Sure, Clinton is a corporate warmongering demon just like her male counterparts, but this hatred was something more sinister, attacking her looks, her relationship with her sleazy/Epstein-connected husband & making outlandish claims about her drinking the blood of children in devil-worshiping rituals. 

Regular women in this country aren't treated much better, continuously being forced to fight for our basic bodily autonomy & human rights.  We're currently losing that battle, with many states (including mine) banning abortion while leaving child marriage perfectly legal.  Domestic abuse, rape & child abuse are practically decriminalized as most offenders get no more than slap-on-the-wrist sentences like anger management classes, community service or nothing at all.  And gays/lesbians will remain a permanent underclass because our uneducated populace refuses to understand the difference between "minority/different" and "sick/abnormal".

Indeed, we are a nation in search of a national identity, a rootless tree with branches growing in directionless circles, starving & choking out the base.  We say we want freedom but are only willing to fight for the freedoms WE personally value, putting feelings above facts & the fact that we're "offended" above everything.  Conservatives push "small government" but fight to literally outlaw basic personal freedoms like family planning through practical sex education, contraception & abortion; adult drug use & gay marriage, attempting to lock up & demonize anyone who lives & loves differently than they do.  But suggest even the most modest gun laws, religious or corporate restrictions & they flip their MAGA hats.  Never mind that corporations, billionaires & religious orgs already have far too much freedom to do things like not pay taxes & most Republicans are NOT in this category themselves.

Liberals, on the other hand, claim to stand for tolerance, diversity, information & progressive ideals, yet they support a fascist form of censorship & compelled speech, finding it perfectly acceptable for anyone who uses the "wrong pronouns" (read: right pronouns)  to get fired, threatened or doxxed & supporting the transfer of trans-identified male prisoners to women's prisons among other horrors.  Despite their alleged devotion to facts & science, liberals have become the new evolution deniers with this whole gender > sex mindset, which is no less a religion than the many branches of the Christian faith they so often mock & demean.  And their "sex work is work" mantra is every bit as backward & harmful to women/girls as the right's belief that a woman's place is in the home.  One sees us as private property, the other as public property.  Either way, women lose.

The hypocrisy on both ends absolutely reeks, yet both sides are completely blind to their particular brand of bullshit.  Could our stinking hypocrisy as well as our deepening division that never really went away after the Civil War have something to do with our lack of a cohesive national identity?  The fact that, not only are we all from such divergent backgrounds that we can't bridge the divide between us, but our individual ancestries are such a mishmash of contradictory & tragic stories we don't know who we are as individuals?  

I pose this question on the day after Donald Trump, Republican candidate for president in 2024, was shot in the ear at a rally, grazed by a bullet fired into the crowd by a rooftop assailant, killing one spectator & injuring others.  (And in true American fashion, liberal opponents in the comment section are making hideous jokes/snide remarks that sound exactly like something Trump supporters would say had the tables been turned while failing to see the absolutely absurd levels of hypocrisy in that).  Hopefully this event was an ugly one-off but I see it as one of those turning point moments where things just continue to descend into chaos.  Chris Hedges refers to them as small moments that change the course of history & spark the destruction of nations from the inside.  Here's hoping I'm wrong.