In today’s world of mis/disinformation, it is becoming increasingly difficult to figure out what is happening in the country, much less the world. It is difficult to discern fact from fiction, propaganda from truth, whole truth from partial truths. This is increasingly facilitated by the denigration of education and the attempts to control how trained and education teaching professionals from K-12, and higher education teach their material and approach things like American history from an honest perspective—and allow the student to learn how to think, analyze, and discuss their differing points of view and recognize their own biases. Teachers are being handcuffed by individuals and board members who have individual aspirations that have nothing to do with students and are more concerned with their moments in the spotlight than actually preparing future generations for the chaotic, tumultuous, and unfortunately dangerous world they are inheriting.
I have studied white supremacy, Americanized Nazism, and right wing domestic violent extremists for over a decade. When I began studying, I never imagined that the rhetoric of the people I studied would be bandied about by regular everyday Americans, and that their coded language, rhetoric, beliefs, slogans, and positions would become so popular. Perhaps that was my own naivete at the time. Now, I know better. Christian Nationalism, hypernationalism, racism is, unfortunately, as American as apple pie. Before you rush to flay me alive, understand, this is not a critique of every individual American, nor you, the reader, because I don’t know you. What I do know, and what I have studied, and what I can provide evidence to support is that this country, phenomenal as it is, has a problem with racism, othering, and accepting differences. And it is consistent, and it is enduring. Sure, it changes forms, sure things improve in certain aspects, but they worsen in others. Things that on the surface level, most people think have nothing to do with racism, like abortion, education, drugs, or prison sentencing are, upon closer analysis, part of a system that has been in place for centuries that supports and props up one specific demographic over the “other.” Again, before you flame me, that doesn’t mean that white protestant men can’t be discriminated against;that’s the thing with racism, it’s omni-directional. What it does mean is that the American system—law, society, politics, culture, religion, schooling, employment—provides an inherent advantage to white protestant males.
This doesn’t come from nowhere. This comes from history—a subject that is under attack at the moment as are the academics who have been trained and studied it—a history that is riddled with oppression, violence, exclusion, imprisonment, bans, misrepresentation, and denigration. Once again, hold your fire. I have always taken issue with the “Make America Great Again” slogan—not least of all because it is plagiarizing Ronald Reagan—but because that implies this country is not great. And it is. Because despite all I have laid out here, what makes this country great, what has always made this country great, and will always make this country great, is our ability to change, to grow, to analyze the mistakes of the past, and actually move forward in ways that other countries may not be able to, or can’t because they don’t have as diverse a population as we do—which incidentally, I would argue is one of our greatest strengths. It doesn’t look like it now, with Roe v Wade on the chopping block, or with the amount of gentrification, gerrymandering, hypernationalism, and our distinctive move towards theocracy, but that can change. It has changed in the past, and it can again. We just need to recognize what is happening and realize that the people we elect to office work for us. We need to hold our elected officials accountable; we need to get involved at the local level, we need to allow teachers to teach our kids, we need to provide funding for schools to teach our kids how to think, and not just how to do a job. They are people, not drones. For those who shout about communism and socialism so much, they don’t realize that by attacking the schools and deemphasizing the social sciences and humanities, you are breeding and creating workers, just workers, which is what, if there ever was an actual socialist country on earth (spoiler alert: there hasn’t been, they all are or have been fascist), that is exactly what they would want. Don’t think, don’t question, just work.
Is that what we want?
The height of patriotism, in my opinion, is openly questioning and critiquing the government and our leaders, obeyance is not love for the country, blind faith is not support. Questioning, analyzing, and discussing differences and different perspectives, which, incidentally, can get you killed in other countries, is a treasure in America. It is what this country actually was founded on, challenging authority, civil disobedience, and pushing for change. Those who try to shut you down because of who or what you are, or who are what you believe, are not supporting America, they are diminishing it.
That being said, there is a difference between making an argument vs. being argumentative. An argument requires evidence, and that evidence cannot simply be a personal experience, or something read online from an unqualified source, or a post online or in a chat. An argument requires research, analysis, and critical thinking. These are skills that are emphasized in all the humanities and social sciences— once again, two academic fields feeling the brunt of the current climate, and it’s not surprising as to why. Tribalism, party loyalty, religious nationalism, has been steadily replacing or being falsely equated with patriotism for the last twenty years, if not more.
So what can be done about it: Well, first this needs to be recognized as an American issue, not a party issue, not a partisan issue, but all of us, and we have to recognize that American means all of us, not just some of us. The second is education. Education about how the past, through analyzing different perspectives, provides more insight about how and why things happened the way they did. Not simply teaching the American Revolution, but rather asking, how did the American Revolution affect First Peoples? Not simply explaining that the Declaration was a founding document but asking why it characterized Natives as “merciless Indian Savages” and asking what effect that had on Westward expansion.
With historical studies, we also look to other experts in disciplines like sociology, psychology, political science, music, English, and theater, to understand how America has evolved, how and why people act the way they do, what institutions are influencing us, how do we “cut through the fat” and see the country for what it is and how it operates. We don’t denigrate expertise, we celebrate it. And we do that by questioning it, engaging with it, and recognizing that disagreement is not disrespectful or denigrative, but a legitimate opportunity for growth, change, and self improvement.
© 2022 Dr. Alon Milwicki