That frame, ambivalence, pre-ambivalence, and post-ambivalence, applies to a bunch of different things, relationships, employment settings, and even working in the yard.
It fits my relationship with America, and today, July the 4th, I am feeling it deeply. At one point, I was deeply committed to the US of A. Frankly, that was when I was younger and when I was deeply imbedded within my white world. Things were simpler then: we were the best, we did no wrong, we saved the world from itself, and our leaders were all good people through and though.
Then I woke up one day and realized that there were so many things I did not know about our country. I did not know much if anything about slavery, the real origins of the Civil War, Reconstruction, the roots of Jim Crow, red-lining, racism, health disparities between whites and Blacks, institutional racism, white supremacy, and how America was built on the backs of the enslaved whose enslavers profited enormously.
Therein lies my ambivalence.
Then, I began to remember my childhood and all of the contradictions there around race and relationships.
Then, I began to interview Black farmers across the South, and represented them before the big people in USDA and DOJ. Then, I listened more and more and more.
One of the first on site interviews took place in Colfax, Louisiana. My teachers never told me about the horrors of reconstruction, how the Supreme Court undermined freedoms that the formerly enslaved people had come to enjoy, their own employment, freedom to travel, and then to vote their conscience. One of the most horrific massacres took place there in 1873. Check it out.
I interviewed a large number of people who celebrate June 19 as their day of freedom, and not July 4. July the 4th, I was told, was the white peoples' holiday, not theirs. Since then, I have respectfully joined them.
I feel a lot of emotions about June 19 and how long it took to get that word to Texas, and now we pretty much know that the enslavers were given a free reign of terror on the enslaved in order to have one more harvest season.
Therein lies my ambivalence.
Explore Black Codes under Jim Crow, forced labor via the penal system, and you'll know what I mean.
Therein lies my ambivalence.
So, I believe that democracy is a grand experiment. It is a noble experiment. Democracy has been good to me. I am a white guy, a member of the race group defined by its whiteness.
Therein lies my ambivalence.
Democracy has not been good to all of the people that I care about. The color of white creeps into so many areas of our lives. Look at the devastation to Black farmers that has come from the bowels of white USDA. Laws and policies and programs should be color blind, but those who administrate them are not. That's why Black farmers have lost so much land and generational wealth.
Therein lies my ambivalence.
So, I think America is still trying to work it out. We tried when we voted Obama into office, two times. We then had a white last and elected his antithesis. Then, we came around and rebounded once more and voted in Biden. We are still suffering from the four trump years. We will for a while.
Therein lies my ambivalence.
Still, I am glad to live in America, the only place I've ever lived. I do not believe in American exceptionalism, and I do not buy into Manifest Destiny, the notion that gave white people permission to rape and pillage and steal land from whomever was in the way.
Therein lies my ambivalence.
I think we can be better. We can do better. We can live better. We can treat people better. Everyone's vote should count, and all Americans should have the freedom to vote, without onerous burdens placed upon them.
Therein lies my ambivalence.
Yes, I think democracy is a grand experiment. It is an experiment that we are still engaged in. You and I are part of the experiment. We are those being experimented upon.
I long for the day when it is "liberty and justice for all," not "liberty and justice for some."
Therein lies my ambivalence.
That's a long story. Enough for today.
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