Screenshot : Fox News

Dear America,

When I say “America,” I obviously mean the ones who want to be made “great again.” The ones upon which God shed his grace. The ones who live under liberty and justice. The ones who reside in the land of the free and the home of the brave. When I say “America,” you know who I mean:

White people.

On Tuesday, political commentator etiquette instructor Kate Pavlich, who fills Fox News’ mandatory blonde position on Outnumbered, appeared on the Trump Support Network to remind viewers that negroes have never formally thanked this country for ending slavery. Gurgling a mixture of privilege-flavored white tears, Pavlich’s voice quivered with ignorance as she chastised people who blame America for slavery.


“They keep blaming America for the sin of slavery but the truth is, throughout human history, slavery has existed,” Pavlich explained, using the most-used entry from the Official Manual of White Excuses. “And America came along as the first country to end it within 150 years. And we get no credit for trying to move forward and trying to make good on that.”

“Well...we did have a bloody Civil War,” said the not-blonde, not-black lady who looks kind of familiar, as she reminded the stunned counterparts of the deadliest conflict in the history of this country. “And the remnants of the Civil War, particularly blacks in the South, that was not an easy path. It was bloody and violent and deadly and we cannot forget that.”


“My point is, we were the country that decided to end it,” Pavlich retorted, blatantly lying. “And we’re still dealing with the issue. But if you want to start a problem and to inflame racial tension even more, start blaming people who had nothing to do with slavery for the sin of slavery. That is not fair. That is not the American way. We shouldn’t be doing it.”

Oh, America, I didn’t even know you cared!

Before issuing an unequivocal apology, I would first like to dissect Pavlich’s statement so that black America doesn’t inadvertently overlook any part of our gratefulness to white people. Pavlich said:

They keep blaming America for the sin of slavery but the truth is, throughout human history, slavery has existed.


Pavlich is right. Slavery has existed in almost every culture in the world. But arguably, it has never been as brutal and unyielding as it was practiced in America. The slaves in America were not prisoners of war, military slaves, debtors or subjects of a feudal system, they were property to be bought and sold. Unfettered capitalism made slavery in America inescapable. It was a sentence passed down through generations and eventually, almost exclusively limited to one race of people.

Also, rape, murder, and theft have existed throughout human history. That doesn’t mean it’s not evil.

America came along as the first country to end it within 150 years.

What kind of white mathematics is this? The first slaves were brought to America in 1619. Slavery was abolished in 1865 (kinda). Did Pavlich forget to carry the one? Maybe she starts counting in 1776. Or maybe she’s counting from 1619 to 1777 when the first state (Vermont) outlawed slavery. Or maybe 1804, when slavery was outlawed in the North.


Nah. That would mean that Pavlich acknowledges that most of America knew that slavery was evil since the day the country was founded but continued to do it anyway, which is the most immoral sin of all.

Maybe she’s just bad at math.

And we get no credit for trying to move forward and trying to make good on that.

Wait...I haven’t been outside today. Is there a mule tied to my mailbox with a deed for 40 acres? Did reparations checks come in the mail? When did America “make good” on chattel slavery?

My point is, we were the country that decided to end it. And we’re still dealing with the issue.


“Decided?”

Decided?

If you add up the deaths of people who died fighting for this country, more people were killed in the fight to end slavery in America than died fighting the Nazis, the British, the Viet Cong, the North Koreans, the Japanese, Al-Queda, Isis and all the other wars in American history combined.


America didn’t decide to end slavery. Half the country declared that slavery would end over their dead bodies. Half the country said they’d rather be slaveowners than Americans. America didn’t “decide” to end slavery any more than Hitler decided to end the Holocaust or Osama Bin Laden decided to stop being a terrorist. The only way we could end slavery in this country was to shoot white people in the face.

But if you want to start a problem and to inflame racial tension even more, start blaming people who had nothing to do with slavery for the sin of slavery. That is not fair. That is not the American way. We shouldn’t be doing it.”


The blonde lady is right. This is not the American way.

I mean...It was the American way when we gave Japanese Americans money for internment camps. It was the way when we gave white people land, jobs, homes and free money under the New Deal to end the Great Depression. It was so American when the Conference for Jewish Material Claims Against Germany first met to secure an eventual 53 billion Deutschmarks for Holocaust survivors, it wasn’t in Berlin, Sweden or Israel...


It was in New York.

But in this particular instance, the fair-haired woman is right. It is not the American way because black people are...well...black. This nation has never been just or fair to African Americans. But maybe if we were more grateful for the abolition of slavery, things would change.


So on behalf of the more than 4,600 black people who were lynched or killed in racial mob violence in the 100 years after the Civil War, I’d like to say, thank you. I thank you for the thousands who were terrorized and disarmed by the Ku Klux Klan immediately after the slaves were freed. We appreciate the separate water fountains and the back door entrances, too.

We are much obliged for the unequal schools, segregated neighborhoods, the backs of buses, the bottom wages, the top of the jail sentences ladder and the fronts of the unemployment line. Our gratefulness extends to the Molotov cocktail throwing, the dog-siccing, the billy clubbing, the fire hosing, the all-white jury-rigging, the daughter and wife-rapings and all of the ingenious, violent ways you invented to oppress us.


Our children thank you for spitting in their faces during integration, underfunding their schools, fire-bombing their places of worship, shooting their friends, building that school-to-prison pipeline, throwing away their resumés because of their black names and insinuating that none of them could do anything as good as a white man without affirmative action meant to compensate for the system that gives your tow headed kids every advantage in this world.

But most of all, we thank you for existing. For serving as an example. For your inefficiency. For showing us who we never ever want to become. Because with 400 years of tripping, whipping, throat-slitting, fixing and fucking over, history has proven one thing:

You still can’t fucking stop us.

Even the teary-eyed, bleached-blonde buffoon demanding applause for white supremacy knows it.


She tried, though.

Tell her we said “thanks.”

Sincerely,

Us