An UnAmerican Essay

Do We Keep Lincoln’s Promise to Our Veterans and Their Families?

            Realistically, the United States of America has not kept Lincoln’s promise he made during his second inaugural address on Saturday, March 4, 1865. The United States hasn’t been in a justified war since World War II when it was antagonized into participation by the Pearl Harbor bombing on December 7, 1941. Not only did we have no true reason to invade Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, but we have not upheld President Lincoln’s assurance “to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan.”

            I will begin with a brief analysis on the Vietnam War. The United States of America deployed soldiers to North Vietnam in order to prevent the spread of communism. This era is, in my opinion, when the United States took upon themselves to become the “world police”. We invaded North Vietnam unjustly and caused unnecessary casualties and injuries. The only reason the American people realized this was a needless cause was due to the unprecedented media coverage of monks self-emolliating, young children running ablaze from a napalm bomb, and wounded soldiers dying in their fellow brothers’ arms. All of this can be credited to the U.S. government thinking they needed to intervene in a situation that had nothing to do with them. And for what? We lost the war. History.com reveals, “More than 3 million people, including 58,000 Americans, were killed in the conflict.” North Vietnam still has a communist government today, which shows we really socked it to them back in the day. Furthermore, when U.S. soldiers returned home, they were shown disdain. Even though they fought in a battle they didn’t believe in and watched their friends die in a muddy jungle, they were the ones who were treated like trash. History.com reports: “According to a survey by the Veterans Administration, some 500,000 of the 3 million troops who served in Vietnam suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, and rates of divorce, suicide, alcoholism and drug addiction were markedly higher among veterans.” Is this taking care of our vets? Is this helping the widows and children who lost a parent in the war? Nixon was an idiot, the president at the time, and we fell right along with Saigon.

            There’s an article by CNN titled “September 11th Hijackers Fast Facts” that discloses the 19 assailants were from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, United Arab Emirates, and Lebanon. The Encyclopedia Britannica Online explains, “Afghanistan War, Afghanistan: anti-Taliban fighters international conflict in Afghanistan beginning in 2001 that was triggered by the September 11 attacks and consisted of three phases. The first phase—toppling the Taliban (the ultraconservative political and religious faction that ruled Afghanistan and provided sanctuary for al-Qaeda, perpetrators of the September 11 attacks)—was brief, lasting just two months...” None of the people involved were from Afghanistan or Iraq, but that’s where we ended up. Thanks, Bush! The first sentence of a Huffington Post article reads: “Ten years after the U.S. first invaded Iraq, returning troops are filing for disability benefits, seeking education and employment assistance and struggling with combat trauma.” It continues on to say, “While the VA is working to improve its mental health services, suicide and PTSD rates remain alarmingly high. About 22 veterans committed suicide each day in 2010 and 228,875 troops who served in Iraq or Afghanistan returned with PTSD as of 2012, a crippling condition some experts say close relatives can contract.” Similarly, a late September 2015 Washington Post piece tells, “Despite promises for widespread reform, nearly 900,000 military veterans have pending applications to access health care from the Department of Veterans Affairs…” Need I say more?

            In conclusion, when President Lincoln promised “to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan”, he was mostly referring to the Civil War era, because since then, the United States of America has not supported our vets the way we should.

Works Cited

• "September 11th Hijackers Fast Facts." CNN.com. 24 Aug. 2015. Web. 22 Mar. 2016.
• Goldberg, Eleanor. "5 Growing Problems Iraq, Afghanistan Wars Veterans Face (And What’s Being Done)." HuffingtonPost.com. 9 Sept. 2013. Web. 22 Mar. 2016.
• "Vietnam War History." History.com. A&E Networks, 2009. Web. 22 Mar. 2016.
• Wax-Thibodeaux, Emily. "Nearly 1 Million Veterans Have Pending Applications for Health Care at VA — and a Third May Already Be Dead." WashingtonPost.com. 3 Sept. 2015. Web. 22 Mar. 2016.
• "Vietnam War." Wikipedia.org. 2016. Web. 22 Mar. 2016.
• Witte, Griff. "Afghanistan War." Encyclopedia Britannica Online. 2016. Web. 22 Mar. 2016.

Ashamed Modernist Activist

            I just finished the first book I've read in a long time and I'm fired up. I would get weird looks when people read the cover, and felt their laser eyes burn tiny holes into my skin. They expected an explanation. They would say it when singing along to an explicit rap song, of course, even though it's socially unsanctioned; but the autobiography of comedian and political activist Dick Gregory would invoke discomfort and curiosity in anyone who glanced at it. In white cursive, it clearly reads: nigger.

            I was standing in my brother's kitchen in Fort Collins, Colorado, talking to his roommate when I saw the roommate's girlfriend giggle and nudge her brother. I continued attentively talking to my friend, though it didn't stop me from noticing her pointing at my book sitting on the kitchen table. I felt the need to educate these white people, since they obviously hadn't ever encountered a radical Black person. I spoke up, “That book is about a comedian and political activist, Dick Gregory. The back is funny. ” I read it out loud to them. 

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I understand there are a good many Southerners in the room tonight. I know the South very well. I spent twenty years there one night...

Last time I was down South I walked into this restaurant, and this white waitress came up to me and said: “We don't serve colored people here.”

I said: “That's all right, I don't eat colored people. Bring me a whole fried chicken.”

About that time these three cousins come in, you know the ones I mean, Klu, Kluck, and Klan, and they say: “Boy, we're givin' you fair warnin'. Anything you do to that chicken, we're gonna do to you.” About then the waitress brought me my chicken. 

“Remember, boy, anything you do to that chicken, we're gonna do to you.” So I put down my knife and fork, and I picked up that chicken, and I kissed it.

            I met them halfway. If you're going laugh at my culture, at least laugh at content that's genuinely humorous and not at the dismal plight African-Americans have been enduring since we were dragged to this continent 400 plus years ago. I told my brother about how upset I was at his roommate's girlfriend and her brother chuckling at my book cover. 

            “That's nothing to get mad about,” he negated. I just stared at him in confusion. I know we're only a quarter Black and I know our skin is only tanned so we are often presumed to be Mexican (which we are also a quarter of) and I know that we can't know the true struggle that dark-skinned Black people face. These facts shouldn't exclude us from feeling baffled when two ignorant people who live in the year 2016 still find it acceptable to jeer at a book's cover without inquiring about its contents. 

            I haven't read something that has provoked such a response in me for a long time. Maybe it's not even entirely the book that's stirring me. Maybe I've learned a thing or two since my last read. Maybe the world has shown its true colors and I have a glimpse of an underbelly I didn't want to see. When there are people in the United States of America in 2016 who support Donald J. Trump, I identify now more than ever with Mr. Dick Gregory. I though his marching in Selma, Jackson, Washington, and Birmingham would help civil rights divert Americans from racism, but it seemed to only encourage them to masquerade it. At one point in his book, he explains: “I never learned hate at home, or shame. I had to go to school for that.”

            Similarly, one learns this sort of intolerance from media. When Fox News declares Donald Trump as being honest, this distorts reality. If I learned anything from my logic class, it's that one persons truth isn't always another's truth. When Donald Trump declares an ‘extremely credible source’ has told him that Barack Obama’s birth certificate is a fraud, yeah, perhaps someone did make that call, which would make it true. But the content of what he says not only ignorant, but it's also ridiculous. It's literally a constitutional rule that immigrants don't qualify for presidency, yet we made an exception for someone a large majority of the country (though obviously not thee largest ;] ) doesn't like? Yeah... keep dreaming, Mr. Drumpf.

            I read an article in USA Today a couple weeks ago with a headline reading:

No Donald, We Black Folks Don't Love You

by David Person

            Trump blew it when Jake Tapper of CNN tossed him the biggest, fattest of all softball questions on Sunday’s State of the Union broadcast: “Will you unequivocally condemn David Duke and say that you don’t want his vote or that of other white supremacists in this election?”

"I have to look at the group,” Trump replied. “I mean, I don't know what group you're talking about. You wouldn't want me to condemn a group that I know nothing about.”

            Repeating Duke’s name back to Tapper, he went on to claim he knew nothing about the former KKK leader or white supremacists, a strange stance since he had curtly disavowed Duke after the Thursday night GOP debate and again Friday at a news conference with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

            Later on Sunday, apparently attempting damage-control, Trump took to Twitter to echo his earlier disavowals of Duke. By Monday, he was playing the technology card, blaming his strikeout on a bad earpiece.

            Whatever.

            Trump at one time was very clear about who Duke was and what Duke believed. “This is not company I wish to keep,” he said of Duke in 2000.The whole sequence stretches credulity.

            One problem is that Trump seems to believe that celebrity and ratings will equate to votes. And that could be the case with that white, right-wing voting bloc looking for alternatives to the Republican status quo.

            But surely he knows he lost Democrats long ago, thanks to his birther antics during the last campaign cycle. And African Americans make up a significant percentage of the Democratic vote — 23% in 2014, according to House exit polls. The best current estimates are that black support for Trump is as low as 4% and no higher than 12%.

Many African Americans apparently enjoyed Trump, the brash, tough TV boss on The Apprentice. But we black folks know the difference between a reality show and a presidential campaign.

            So here I am, a couple hours after I finished my book and I'm just plotting how I can revolutionize the U.S. of A. from a tiny, conservative town in northeastern Colorado whose population literally doesn't exceed 250 people. I'm 22. I'm going to graduate in May with an associates degree in psychology. What the hell do I know about civil rights protesting and large-city racial inequality? Furthermore, how do I find a national platform like Dick Gregory did back in the 1960's? I'm stewing and strategizing on how I make a difference in the world and make people more tolerant and open-minded... just like Mr. Gregory did 50 years ago. I'm so glad times have changed.

Works Cited

• Gregory, Dick, and Robert Lipsyte. Nigger: An Autobiography. New York: Washington Square, Pub. by Pocket, 1986. Print.

• Person, David. "Message to Donald, Blacks Don't Love You." USA Today. 29 Feb. 2016. Web. 15 Mar. 2016.