What “glorious” chapters, Ken?

Anti-imperialismWarRacismPatriarchyColonialism

Dec 13

Originally published in my Facebook post on November 27 2021. Republished here with edits.

Downloaded from social media, additions are in red by me. Image description: Ken Burn’s head and shoulders are visible in the center of the picture, gazing into the camera. On both sides of his had I added thought bubbles in red. On the left side the thought bubbles read: “How to look like an ally…” and on the right side they read: “…while still upholding the empire”.

Ken Burns thinks there have been “glorious” chapters in US history. This is what he said:

“Being an American means reckoning with a history fraught with violence and injustice. Ignoring that reality in favor of mythology is not only wrong but also dangerous. The dark chapters of American history have just as much to teach us, if not more, than the glorious one, and often the two are intertwined.”

I’d like to ask him which chapters he considers to be “glorious”.

Does he mean WWII? My people fought that war and paid for it from the very beginning to the very end, unlike the USA. The USA hung out from 1939 to 1941 selling weapons and other things to both the Nazis and the British, playing both sides of fascists, and had to be forced into actually fighting white men by the Japanese in December of 1941.

So…maybe Ken is talking about the Moon landing? That only happened by importing German scientists from WWII into NASA whose innovations often came from appropriating and corrupting ancient sciences from Hindus and Buddhists (stemming from a German racist obsession with India). The Indians were totally erased from the record, of course, just like they were erased from the record of who fought WWII and paid for it.

What about the Emancipation Proclamation? That only happened because Abraham Lincoln wanted to weaken the Confederacy, not actually free the enslaved people annnnnnd…the 13th Amendment legalized criminalizing and enslaving Black people on the white man's whim. There are now more people in US prisons in a system of neo-slavery than there were slaves during the Civil War. Land of the free, home of the brave, amirite?

Maybe Ken's talking about the “glorious” US Constitution? That’s entirely based upon and stolen from the Indigenous Iroquois Great Law of Peace, but only after the white men bastardized and corrupted the Great Law of Peace by taking out all the parts that are anti-patriarchy and anti-Abrahamic supremacist.

What about the Suffragettes? Nope. Those were stolen principles of Indigenous women and the enslaved Black women that were utilized and enforced by white women only for the benefit of white women, excluding said Indigenous and/or Black women (or anyone else who was not a cis man). And needing to have a movement to insist upon a woman’s humanity isn’t a sign of a glorious country, Ken, but maybe you don’t know what the word “glorious” is supposed to mean.

So…the New Deal? Was that a glorious chapter? But why did the US need a New Deal, Ken? Was it because white male capitalists had totally crashed the entire world's economy, leading to the Great Depression that destroyed countries all over the world and helped lead to the rise of Germany’s fascist regime that ultimately led to WWII? Is that why, Ken? And the New Deal only helped poor white people. Those poor white people didn’t give a damn about the poor Black people who were left behind. What a charming example of how socialist policies don’t actually solve racism when they’re designed by racists.

But Ken must be talking about the Civil Rights movement, right? Don't even get me started. The kind of country that needs a civil rights movement has no right to boast of glory, Ken.

There is not one decade of US history where this country has not waged some imperialist war for the benefit of white supremacist capitalist patriarchal empire against Indigenous peoples all over the world. That's what this country's economy runs on, Ken. Endless war. Read Smedley Butler’s “War is a Racket”, he’ll tell you all about it if you need to hear it from a white man.

I know you mean well, Ken, but it’s time to be honest and face facts. The USA is evil, started evil, continued to be evil, is evil now, and won't stop being evil no matter what. The only way you can possibly fix this hellish country is to dismantle it entirely and give the land back to the Indigenous peoples.

That would be a glorious chapter, Ken. The USA’s only glorious chapter.