After the Rittenhouse verdict: Will "white freedom" spell the ruin of America? [View all]

[American Interregnum]

By CHAUNCEY DEVEGA
PUBLISHED NOVEMBER 22, 2021 6:00AM, Salon

"White freedom" could bring the ultimate ruination of America. By that term, I do not simply mean "white privilege" or "racist" behavior that violates social norms and is considered unacceptable or aberrant. White freedom is much more powerful than that: it is a core organizing principle of American society.

In his recent book "White Freedom: The Racial History of an Idea," Tyler Stovall explains this concept as "the belief (and practice) that freedom is central to white racial identity, and that only white people can or should be free."

Contrary to what many Americans would like to believe, the country's founding was not a project dedicated to universal human rights. Instead, America's "democratic" experiment was based on a racialized understanding of democracy and of who counts as fully human — and who does not.

In the 18th century, full citizenship rights and "democracy" were exclusive to white men who owned property. As Charles Mills, Edmund Morgan and other scholars have documented, Black and other nonwhite people were the boundary against which "democracy" and white freedom were to be demarcated and built upon. In his 1999 book "The Racial Contract," Charles Mills summarizes this as: "Whiteness is not really a color at all, but a set of power relations."

Link

I've always said only one country can destroy America. And we're doing a fantastic job of it!