We must stop saying ‘This isn’t America.’ It is, and we have to fight against it | Opinion

These days, it’s hard to believe our eyes and ears. At an inauguration rally, we saw Elon Musk, the closest ally of the President of the United States give what appeared to be a Nazi salute. Twice. Now we watch as he dismantles, without oversight or accountability, whole government agencies, including USAID.

We are seeing the world’s richest man take resources from the poorest and most vulnerable. We hear this administration reiterate that they stand in opposition to diversity, equity and inclusion and will destroy any program and fire any government employee upholding these values. We heard the commander in chief call for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from the Gaza strip. We watched Secretary of State Marco Rubio appoint Darren Beattie, who wrote in October of 2024 that “Competent white men must be in charge if you want things to work,” as acting under secretary for public diplomacy and public affairs.

It’s hard to believe that we are seeing what we are seeing. It’s tempting to allow ourselves to be silenced by warnings against overreaction and assurances that nothing is what it seems. The prophet Isaiah warned his own people that they were “’ever hearing but never understanding,’” “’ever seeing but never perceiving,’” and lamented that if only they could “’see with their eyes’” and ‘”hear with their ears’” they would “’understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.’”

It’s terrifying to believe our own eyes and ears, but we must.

And we must stop saying, “this isn’t America.” Of course it is. These are exactly the same kinds of leaders and policies that justified and then executed the genocide and ethnic cleansing of Native Americans and wrote the Three-Fifths Compromise into the United States Constitution, declaring that Black people who were enslaved weren’t whole people. It was Supreme Court Justices just like those currently sitting on the bench who ruled in Dred Scott that Black people were not citizens of the United States and that Congress was powerless to prevent slavery in U.S. territories.

From the beginning, people who deny the founding ideal of this country that “all men are created equal” have sought and won power and authority. Even the men who declared their independence did not believe that “all” included indigenous people, those they enslaved or women. Let eyes opened by the present give us the ability to see the past clearly, so that we can finally understand, turn and be healed.

The lie that some lives matter more than others has once again surged in power, popularity and profitability. None of us can control whether others pledge allegiance to it. But we can decide whether or not we will. The moral philosopher Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who survived decades in a Soviet prison after speaking out against the government, wrote about the responsibility an individual has to the truth in times like these, saying “‘Let your credo be this: let the lie come into the world, let it even triumph. But not through me.’”

This is no time for despair. We all have spheres of influence where we are empowered and responsible for telling and living the truth.

My friend Rev. William H. Lamar IV, the pastor of Metropolitan A.M.E. church in Washington, D.C., is a witness for creative truth telling.

In December of 2020 members of the Proud Boys white supremacy group desecrated and vandalized church property. The congregation refused to accept this violation of their rights as normal or inevitable. Instead, they took the Proud Boys to court and won a multi-million dollar settlement. When the organization refused to pay, the church took them back to court to enforce the judgment. The judge ruled in the church’s favor and now, as celebrated on the church website, “For the first time in our nation’s history, a Black institution owns the property of a white supremacist group.”

The church now owns the exclusive rights to the Proud Boys name and trademark. Any profit they make selling merchandise must be turned over to the church. But it gets even better. The church is now selling a limited edition commemorative t-shirt with the logo and slogan “Stay Proud Stay Black,” and “Black Lives Matter.” All proceeds will fund the congregation’s fight for racial justice.

As Booker T. Washington taught, “A lie doesn’t become the truth, wrong doesn’t become right, evil doesn’t become good, just because it’s accepted by the majority.” Neither our past nor our present have to define our future. We can still become a nation that embodies the self-evident truth that all humans are created equal.

This story was originally published February 13, 2025 at 5:00 AM.