Jingoism Unchained and Nationalist Velvet

JingoismUnchained

 [00:00:00] I'm all over social media. Everybody knows this. I have personal social media and I have social media for my, uh, podcast for the podcast. I follow a lot of political and news accounts on social media as well. And every once in a while I will comment on something.

And. This was on CBS News, I believe, and it was, um, a video that they, a news story they had done about migrants illegally entering the U. S. at the, um, Mexico U. S. border in Texas. And so they're showing the video and it's a bunch of different people from different countries. It was Chinese immigrants. It was African.

It was, um, South American. And they're just walking, walking on through, walking on through these, this entrance. And, and I said, [00:01:00] I said, I, I'm not sure why anyone would want to come to the U S but good luck. You made it. Be good. Right? Very simple. Of course, nothing is simple when you are a black Muslim woman and you have an opinion and you have a little blue check mark next to your name.

Suddenly your opinion is the most important and it's the one that everybody wants to reply to. And this is what people have been doing for the last four weeks, four weeks, four weeks. I've been getting notifications and this was on Instagram. I've been getting notifications about people responding to this and people are arguing with each other.

They're not, some of them are arguing with me, but I don't know how because I don't argue back. And But they're arguing with each other amongst these comments and calling each other pig and dog and dumb and stupid and [00:02:00] brainless and dumb and and just all kinds of Incredibly offensive things because of opinions Opinions.

 One of the responses that I often get to my opinion such as the one on the CBS News report

I get the, if you don't like it here, go back to Africa. And I can't go back to Africa because I've actually never been. So you can't go back to a place you've never been to. And I'm from East Cleveland, Ohio, and you couldn't blast me back to that place, frankly. And, but this stuff is starting to happen more and more as we are deeper into the presidential election season for 2024.

Ohio has their primary on Tuesday, March the 12th, and this is just going to get worse. Like it was ramping up in 2023 and [00:03:00] now in 2024, when we've gotten down to what appears to be the only two viable candidates it's only going to get worse.

And every election cycle, including the midterm elections has to have something that people are running for and running against. And this time, the thing that they are running for is we're going to fix the border crisis. I don't know how many years, how many election cycles we've been listening to.

Republicans say they're going to fix the border crisis and they're also going to fix fentanyl coming into the United States. Um, okay. You haven't done it yet, but I have hope you're not going to do anything. You don't do anything because you benefit from these things. Yeah, you do. You benefit from these things.

And it's clear. In these conversations that people are having online, [00:04:00] if you are critical, even a little bit of the United States, even a little bit, if you're critical of the United States, you're not a patriot. If you are not a flag waving, constitution tat tattooed on your body, doing the Pledge of Allegiance every morning before work, Patriot. , then you're a communist from Africa who needs to be deported.

I've got some explaining to do. Let's get into it.

 Hey, welcome back everybody to a new episode of Ayanna Explains It All. Ayanna Explains It All is the podcast [00:05:00] hosted by me, Ayanna Fakir, an attorney living in the suburbs of Northeast Ohio. It is currently March 10th, 2024. And I'm looking out the window in my home office, and it's gloom and it's dark clouds and it's snow and it's windy.

And I'm sitting with a blanket wrapped around me. And I'm also wearing my bonnet. Ayana explains it all is the podcast that bridges the gap between current events and human behavior.

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Whenever, I give my opinion. It matters because I'm a black Muslim woman. People look at me and go, Oh, who do you think you are?

Black people always have to be put in our place, right? If a white person gives their opinion on the U. S. government or the political leaders or says, see, that's what's wrong with this country nowadays. They are allowed to say that. They're allowed to say that and it's fine. But if a black Muslim woman says that, who do you think you are?

Why don't you just go back to Africa? Then go back to where you're from. They're allowed to have, uh, grievances to be upset, to be angry. And in fact, they are angry and upset all the time. I happen to think personally that This is just my opinion. White [00:08:00] men, especially are some of the most miserable people on earth.

 Things haven't been going their way. And so they're striking back and it's a shame. It's a shame because they, their ancestors. Essentially created this problem with their imperialism and colonialism and slavery.

They created this problem of having to deal with people who don't look like them in their country. After slavery ended in the United States, the United States had this problem of what do we do with all these black people and white people came up with some pretty crafty ideas to try to control us. They came up with sharecropping, they came up with, um, chain gangs.

They came up with indiscriminate rounding up of black people and putting us in prison. They came up with, uh, Jim Crow. They came up with, um, sundown towns. They came up with pretty [00:09:00] much if you even look or breathe, if you even look at one of us or breathe on one of us, we're going to lynch you. They just decided to kill us.

And then of course, in the North and in the West, there was police violence that uh, resulted in the homicides of dozens and dozens and hundreds of, of Brown and black people. And so they have. used many methods to try to curtail this problem that they have, a problem that they created. And I call it a problem because for them, they see it as a problem.

They have a black problem. They have a Hispanic problem. They have, uh, an African immigrant problem. They have a Haitian problem. But it's always because these people don't look like me because they're not white like me and speak English Speak the language like me. They're a problem. It is the racist ideas that are the problem.

 And So everything [00:10:00] that black people want and do and accomplish and any kind of strides that we make in any kind of industry and any kind of, uh, break that we receive from the government or from a corporation is seen as being against a white person and it makes them mad.

And so now they're all going after it. We saw last year when the Supreme Court ended affirmative action in colleges and universities, but now. There are, uh, lawsuits pending against nonprofit organizations that use grant money for specific races of people. For instance, if you wanted to give a grant to, an indigenous person to help them go to college, Well, why aren't you giving it to a white person? Shouldn't a white person be allowed that same opportunity? If you want to give, and this is a case in the Supreme Court right now, if you want to give a grant to a [00:11:00] black woman who wants to start her own business, well, why aren't you giving it to a white woman?

Don't they deserve to have money to start their businesses too? But what they, these people fail to realize and what a lot of people fail to realize is that society is not equalized in the United States as much as you think. There is still a lot of inequality, inequality in healthcare, inequality in housing, inequality in education, inequality in banking that exists.

And because it exists and works against racial minorities, yes, we do need help. Starting our own businesses, funding college, giving birth, um, going to vote, going to a vocational program, getting an apprenticeship, buying a home. Yes, we still need help from the U. S. government because it wasn't, it wasn't until about the 1960s, mid 1960s, late [00:12:00] 1960s where the U.

1. government Offices of the U. S. government still had policies of restricting Blacks from living in the same suburban neighborhoods as Whites, if they were on public assistance. There were racial covenants that existed in deeds to homes. That did not allow them to be sold to black people that did not, that did not allow them to be owned these homes, these properties to be owned by black people.

There were cities that had ordinances that said black people could not live in the same proximity as whites. Say for instance, uh, and I re I just, I read this book called the color of law, amazing book. And it talks all about this. It's a lot of technical stuff, but it's amazing. It talks about de facto and [00:13:00] jury segregation as it relates to housing and it just breaks it all down.

And it talks about how, when Ford plants and Chrysler plants moved to a certain Part of the United States, white people could move to the same city where the plant was so that their commute would be just minutes. But black people, because of segregation, whether it was de facto or de jure, they would end up having to live at least an hour.

From that same plant, because blacks and whites could not live in the same place. And if a place already had white people, well then it was white. And if it was a place that had black people, that white people wanted to live in and develop, then they would kick the black people out. Destroy their homes, send them somewhere else.

And then it became a white suburb and black people couldn't live there and whites couldn't sell their houses to black people unless they wanted to face, [00:14:00] you know, retribution or unless they wanted to bring harm to the black family who bought the house. And so these are things that we had to deal with until at least the late 1960s in the United States.

So to say that, Oh, well it's been, you know, 50 or so years, things are equalized now, right? No, you don't have 50 years. Fine. 50 years. The laws change, but have people's attitudes changed. Remember de facto and de jure. De jure is law. Segregation by law de facto is by custom and practice and custom and practice means people's attitudes.

People's attitudes, how people act, how people behave. And so because these attitudes, even after the law came in and said, Hey, y'all got to stop this shit. People's attitudes still were, well, I shouldn't have to live here with these people. I shouldn't have to live next to these people. They shouldn't be allowed to live here.[00:15:00]

I pay too much money to live next to a Negro. I pay too much money to have to, when I go out to dine, to have to sit next to a Negro. There are people who still have these attitudes. They don't want to see black people anywhere around them. There are people who still don't want to see women in positions of power. They don't want a woman boss. They don't want a woman president. They don't want even a woman doctor, but if they have to have one, then, Oh, okay. They'd rather see women in the kitchen, such as the Senator from Alabama who gave the Republican response to, uh, Biden's state of the union address from her kitchen in this.

Angry, shrill, I'm listening to this lady like, what the f is she about to vomit or is she about to cry? She sounded ridiculous. She sounded absolutely ridiculous. And part of the story that she told, she's told a story about a young woman who had been trafficked. [00:16:00] trafficked and she lied. The story was true, but it didn't happen when she said it happened and it didn't happen where she said it happened.

So it was essentially fabricated and she used it to point out that there's a border crisis that we got to fix by hiring Republicans to do the job because the Democrats and Biden aren't doing the job. So we're just going to make shit up. And because people. On her side of the fence want to hear that they're not going to fact check it They're not gonna care that she was lying.

It just makes sense to them So they're just going to accept it ooooh, all the scary immigrants coming into the U.

S., ooooh.

Are some of the people who are coming into the U. S. legally, uh, gonna fuck up? Yeah, some of the people coming to the U. S. illegally are gonna fuck up. But millions of people already here, born here, living here, paying taxes here, [00:17:00] fuck up every damn day. They're, uh, scammers, cheaters, murderers, drug addicts, drug dealers.

They're robbing people. They're, uh, molesting children. People already living here. Who live here, who were born here. So you're giving off this narrative about scary immigrants at the border, honey, a couple of streets over some scary shit that I have to be confronted with every day. I live right next to a major us city.

That if you read one report, it's one of the, it's, it's top five for the most unhappiest places to live or it's top 10 for the most murderous places to live. I mean, and this is because of U. S. citizens. It's not because of immigrants. No, it's because of U. S. citizens.

I put the blame on the people who are doing the thing, [00:18:00] but I also put the blame on politicians who have for years not been able to fix the problems of crime. And so every time somebody runs for office, they have to get up there and scare you with crime stories. Oh, you're going to get raped and sexually trafficked and they're going to send their worst people over here and they're going to rob you and murder you.

It's easy to do that because people are already believing that because that's what they see. But not only that, they're, they just want to believe that. You know, some of us are really easy marks. Some of us, some of us are really easy to get man, but this election cycle has already gotten off to a roaring, a roaring, obnoxious start.

 This, this year is, is it's very, it's agonizing for a lot of people because in 2020 we were [00:19:00] all so excited to vote for Joe Biden because we can't fucking stand Donald Trump and the same people who can't stand Trump. Can't stand him this time around either. They hate him a lot more, but there are people who were kind of on the fence who were like, Oh, you know, that Trump guy, he sounds like he makes a lot of sense.

No, he doesn't. No, he doesn't. And you would actually have to really be paying attention to the things that he says and the things that he does to understand that he is a psychotic MF er. Right? There are people who are. Pro union. Pro union. For years, they're in unions who are ardent Trump supporters. And why?

Why? He is anti union. He is anti union. If he could eliminate all unions, he would. He is against [00:20:00] unions. How could you vote for someone who is against what you love, what you work so hard to maintain, but he also raised taxes on the middle class. Why would you vote for someone who raised your taxes to now this is He raised taxes to give tax cuts to billionaires.

Now it's one thing to raise taxes on everyone so that more people have health care coverage. It's another thing entirely to raise taxes on the middle American so that you can give tax cuts to all of your friends because those are the people who are who bring in the votes for you because they know when you get in office, you're going to do them this favor.

He works for rich people. He lives for rich people. He is a rich person himself, who by the way doesn't pay his pocket bills. Come on now. But this isn't me saying, Hey, go vote for [00:21:00] Joe Biden. This is me saying you really got to be paying attention to what these people are doing. You really have to be paying attention.

Now, this episode is titled Jingoism Unchained and Nationalist Velvet or How the U. S. Has Lost Its Collective Mind. And that is because people on both sides, people on both sides, the left and the right are just, they're allowing their fears, their fears of losing to, um, how do I put this?

Drive them crazy? Make them say crazy things? Like the things that, you know, people are saying about, well, if you vote, if you don't vote for Biden, that's a vote for Trump and he's going to ban all Muslims. And I've said this before, banning Muslims, you can't ban U. S. citizens. I'm a Muslim and I'm a U. S.

citizen. You can't ban me from my own country. Can't do it. You will try. You will try. [00:22:00] I'm sure because you can't fucking stand us either, but you also don't like black people. There's a lot of anti blackness on the right. There's a lot of anti immigrant on the right. There's a lot of anti everything on the right, but on the left, there's a lot of.

Pro genocide, pro apartheid, pro supporting the war against the Palestinians. There's a lot of that, but then on the right, there's also the pro, I want to take away a woman's right to choose and make her own reproductive choices. And I want to say that a fetus is a human so that I could give it right. So that when a woman needs to have a lifesaving medical procedure, such as having in a top, an ectopic pregnancy that is growing in her liver.

She will have to carry that until it ruptures and possibly kills her because I don't want the fetus to Feel any pain or die because some doctor had to go in there and suck it [00:23:00] out So both of these sides of this coin are out of their fucking minds people are out of their minds And it's not just about religion.

It's about political beliefs is about political ideas. It's about racist ideas. It's about who we think should be in charge, what the people should look like, who should be in charge. It's about things that we were taught when we were kids and a lot of us weren't taught a lot of things because if we didn't go to school beyond, uh, high school, if we didn't make it past the 11th grade, we don't know a lot.

And that's especially true if we never left our little piece of the United States. There are a lot of rural areas that either have a library or the library they have is restricted to certain titles. And so you're only reading what they want you [00:24:00] to read. You're only learning what they want you to learn.

And then after that you go to your beloved factory job or farming job and that's your, that's your life until you die. And so what do you know about Palestine? What do you know about, um, the problems of the inner city? What do you know about? Global warming. What do you know about U. S. Canada trade agreements?

What do you know about, uh, the European Union? What do you know about asylum? What do you know about the crisis in, uh, the Congo? and Sudan. And what do you know about genocide in China against the Uyghur Muslims? What do you know about any of these things? You don't know. But the person you're voting for has to know about all of these things because they're going to be in charge of [00:25:00] the country that is the so called leader of the free world.

And so if they have to know about it, then you also have to know about it because you are the leader of the free Have to make sure that they are saying things that make sense, that they are making policy. That makes sense. But a lot of us aren't doing that. We're just like, oh, whoever my parents voted for is who I'm voting for.

Whoever my husband told me to vote for, who, that's who I'm voting for. Whoever gets on TV and he's the most entertaining, that's who I'm voting for. Whoever looks like, you know, they can pull it off. The, the wealthy white guy, that's who I'm voting for, who's whoever can make me laugh.

That's who I'm voting for. You're not putting a lot of thought into it. But there are a lot of things that you all put a lot of thought into where you should be putting your energy in other places. And one of those things is patriotism. Patriotism. Yeah. Patriotism. I finally get to the point, [00:26:00] right?

 I live in Shaker Heights, Ohio. And that is smack dab next door to Cleveland, Ohio. But, uh, Cleveland, Ohio has been, and is, is still one of the most racially segregated cities in the United States.

One thing you'll find when you come here, American flags everywhere. There'll be no doubt in your mind where you are at. You are in the United States. Surprise! There are flags everywhere. There are flags at car washes. There are flags at gas stations. Flags at banks. Flags at Obviously, police stations, fire stations, um, municipal buildings, government buildings, U.

1. I expect a U. S. flags to be flying at government buildings, right? But at a little ring a dingy car wash in the hood, why are you flying a U. S. flag? [00:27:00] Or better yet, you go to some neighborhoods in Cleveland, like if you go to the west side where most of the white people live, you're going to see a lot of this.

You're going to see Bald eagles and you're gonna see American flags you're gonna see signs about Repent repent Jesus is Lord. You're gonna see Trump signs. You're gonna see flags Everywhere everywhere people have giant ass flagpoles in their yards flying the American flag for what? You're in the United States.

You're in the United States. Why do you have a giant, giant ass flagpole in your yard with a US flag? You're here! Are you, you think somebody's gonna forget? You think somebody's gonna get lost on their way to, uh, [00:28:00] Saskatchewan? And that, yo, that flag's going to help them know to keep going north.

We embrace, people embrace so hard. They go so hard for these symbols and this nationalism. And then we want to be seen as the strong arm in the world. We want to be seen as the might. The mightiest, the most powerful in the world. And so this foreign policy where we're basically seen as taking over everything and reaching in and helping everybody and, um, giving money to everyone.

But it's, it's more than that. It's more than that. We have to be seen as aggressive. We have to be seen as aggressive, especially in the middle East where those Brown people are who are terrorists. We don't want them coming back in and committing another, nine 11. So we gotta be harsh. We have to go in there [00:29:00] and kill them all and make sure they know that we mean business, right?

And we're doing this all over the world. We're giving billions to Ukraine. We're giving billions to Israel. We're putting billions in the Middle East. Hell, but we're not putting money where? A lot of the immigrants who are coming, a lot of the migrants who are coming into the U. S., we're not putting a lot of money there.

We're putting it where our allies, where we derive the most benefit, which is ridiculous because we get the U. S. corporations, the U. S. gets a lot of its produce and a lot of its meat from South America. So why are we not investing more in stabilizing the governments of South American countries is beyond me.

It's beyond me. These are not stabilized places. These are places that are constantly being taken over by, uh, [00:30:00] militaries. And they're coups and they're being affected by these weather systems like hurricanes and earthquakes. And we're giving them aid, but we're just giving them aid. We're not making sure that things are going to the people and that they have low unemployment.

We don't care if Venezuela has high unemployment. We don't care if Brazil has high unemployment and rampant disease. I'm not saying that it does, but we don't care. We don't care. We care when these people show up at the U. S. Mexico border wanting to get into the U. S., that's when we care. By then it's too late.

But Americans are so focused on getting rid of the evil terrorist in the Middle East that we don't see where our resources could be better used. And that is in stabilizing the regions where migrants are coming from, where people are escaping. immigrating illegally, [00:31:00] but Americans love this country. We love this country so much.

We love it so much. The U S Americans, we love this place so much. I've been listening to, This book called The Indigenous People's History of the United States and, um, right at the beginning of the book, the author talks about how she asked her students to draw a map of the United States at the time of independence in 1776.

And all of the students drew a picture of present day United States. They all drew a picture of present day United States. And I'm sitting there thinking, Did they really think that the United States was 50 states? At the time that we declared independence from, uh, Great Britain. That can't be, no. Y'all don't [00:32:00] know about the 13 colonies?

That were on the Atlantic Ocean? Y'all don't know about the 13, 13 original colonies? Why do you think they're called the 13 original colonies? Because that's all the fuck that is. The U. S. was at the time of independence, like it's even on, they put it on the quarters. Like what? But people love this country so much.

Love it so much. Want it to be the best. Want it to be the, the, the most powerful nation on earth. And we don't know not one fucking thing about this place. We don't know about this place. But then if you try to criticize it, you try to present history to people. Who do you think you are? Go back to where you came from.

You cannot be, I mean, if I'm, I'm told to go back to where I came from, but if a white person, again, if a white person [00:33:00] says something critical of the U. S., they're given head nods, right? No one tells a white person to leave the U. S. if they don't like it. I mean, they're not indigenous to the U. S., so why can't you say, go back to where you're from?

They're not indigenous to the U. S., you can't be indigenous to a place you colonized. So the responses to my comment on that CBS News story are revealing in that they show how far people are willing to go to advance the so called US American values and and How low people will dive to escape their good sense and embrace their ignorance The u.

1. Is the best right? It's the best country. It's the best country Ayanna That's why people want to come here You look at those other [00:34:00] countries and and they've got drug cartels and they've got people threatening to kill people's families And if they come here, they're gonna get a bank account and a cell phone and they're gonna have a place to say mm hmm Those are handouts.

Those are handouts. There are a lot of US Americans living by handouts. A lot of us living by handouts. A lot of us living in poverty. A lot of us living below poverty. So you act like coming here and getting a handout is some big deal. A lot of them, a lot of us Americans living are living that way. Read the book called Cast by Isabelle Wilkerson and she dives deep into a lot of wealth inequality and racial inequality and, and, and such as in the United States and how, you know, The US [00:35:00] has essentially created a caste system that nobody really talks about, but it's there and it's affecting people's lives and their livelihood and it's making them feel like they don't belong and it's making people feel inferior and making other people feel like they are superior.

because of their wealth because of their race. Very good book. But why would anyone want to live here is my question. I still have that question. It's hard living here. It's a democracy. And I love it. That's probably the only thing that I love about this country is that it is a constitutional democracy.

But if you ask people, yeah, ask somebody to name one right given to us citizens, in the constitution. Most people will say, well, freedom of speech, but that's all they know. That's the extent of their knowledge. There are 27 amendments to the U. S. [00:36:00] Constitution. That's 27 times the states decided, yeah, okay, enough of us think that this should be a right, or that this should go into the Constitution, and so we're going to put it in there. But there are all of these other, there's an entire, You know, three branches of government discussion in the constitution before you get to the fucking amendments.

There's a whole, there's the preamble, then there's talking about what the courts do and talking about what the president does and talking about when you have a state of the union and talking about when you have elections. There's a whole talking about what Congress should be, what the Senate should be before you even get to the amendments.

The constitution is the law of the land, but people think the constitution is just the bill of rights and a lot of Americans don't understand how government is run or what parts make up the government, what are the branches of government because they skip [00:37:00] right to, who Well, this says that I can say whatever I want to say, and I can be whatever religion I want to be and blah, blah, blah, , but you don't understand how your government is run.

It's good that you know what, what you can have, but you don't understand how your government is run. And then you're going out and you're voting for people who are to run your government, but you don't understand what they do, how they do it, why they do it, why they have to do it a certain way. You have no idea.

And then you love this country so much, but you don't know how it's run. You don't know how it operates and you're, you're, you're flippant and you're glib and, and, but when it comes down to it, you really don't get it, but you love, you know, you love those bald eagles and, and flags and flag pins and, and red ties.

And you love to, to, to stand for the national anthem. Let me tell you something. The new manager of the San Francisco Giants baseball team [00:38:00] is mandating that all players stand for the star spangled banner. To, in his words, okay, show the other team they're ready to play. He's serious about baseball. They showed up and they're ready to play.

And how do you know? Because they stood for the first. He tried to make it clear. We're not doing this because the other guy, you know, let the players kneel. Like the previous manager during the, the height of the, uh, the school shootings. And, and I think it was in, in Uvalde, but also during the George summer of George Floyd, the prior manager of the team would let players kneel or would let them stay seated.

And that bothered people. Of course it bothers people. I mean, baseball is like the most American sport, right? So American. [00:39:00] Never mind that it was also one of the most racially segregated sports in the United States. For the longest time, they didn't want the Negroes playing. Which, okay, yeah, that's American.

That's U. S. America. The fact that somebody is telling you that you have to stand for the,

National anthem or you're going to get fined or fired is ridiculous to me because the Star Spangled Banner is not the law. Star Spangled Banner is not the law. It's just the anthem of the U. S. And if you're in the U. S., You're playing on U. S. soil? Why? And you're playing against a U.

1. team. Why are you singing the U. S. national anthem? Again, it goes back to the, you're in the U. S. You own property in the U. S. You're living in a house in the U. S. Why do you have a giant fucking flag in your front yard that's waving an American flag? [00:40:00] What are we doing? You go through all of this, all this nationalism, you want to show the world, show the people that you're united and that you love this country.

You don't know anything about this country. Don't know how the government is run. Don't know the state of the union. When politicians talk, you don't know if they're telling the truth or if they're lying. You don't know that there are food deserts in the United States. You don't know that there's income inequality in the United States.

You don't know that Black women in the United States have the highest maternal mortality. You don't know that the cost of higher education is so ridiculous that a lot of people are forgoing higher education

you don't care that a lot of opportunities. Americans are because people have money and people who have money are buying up those opportunities for them and their friends and their families and leaving the rest of us [00:41:00] behind. You don't care that a box of cereal at the grocery store, just a regular size box of cereal costs damn near 7 a box.

And that manufacturers and companies, corporations are setting prices for these things, managers of stores are setting prices at these things on a whim. They're doing this because they know we will continue to pay. Not me. I ain't paying for that shit, but they do it because people will pay. They're charging whatever they want for cereal, for shoes, for clothes, for houses, for cars, bank loans, interest rates.

They're charging whatever they want because they know people need these things and that they will pay no matter what. You don't care that income isn't rising to meet the needs of these bills that we have to pay. You don't care about any of that. You don't care about the dirty air, the dirty [00:42:00] water. You don't care about school shootings.

You don't care about the gun problem. You don't care about the gang problem. You don't care about any of this. All you want is for people to be fucking standing when that damn Star Spangled Banner comes on because that means that you care. You love being here. You love this country. You're a patriot.

You're a real American. And that means something to you. That means something to you. It's ridiculous. It is ridiculous. And the notion is that if you're not a self proclaimed gun loving Patriot, then you're not an American. And by the way, let me tell you something. Anybody living in North America, or South America, or Central America, they are also American.

We, you living in the United States, are U. S. Americans. I know, I know. Fuck me, right? Uh, this, this came across my, my phone the other day and I was, and I, [00:43:00] I, just, Eric Prince. Eric Prince, ERIK. Prince is a name you may or may not be familiar with, but he founded Blackwater,

he was a Navy Seal, so he served time in the military. So he knew something about something. He knew how to get in there and go, you know, he knew something about something about military and, and helping to stabilize regions, although I don't, I don't know that the U. S. ever really stabilized anything abroad, but, blackwater worked, closely with the U. S. government following the U S invasion of Afghanistan. So this guy, you know, he's all deep into what the U S should do, what we can do to make this world better he gets on his podcast. And he said,

the U S should get back into the imperialist realm. They should put their imperialist hat back on, he said. [00:44:00] If so many of these countries around the world are incapable of governing themselves, it's time for us, that is the U. S., to just put the imperial hat back on to say, we're going to govern these countries because enough is enough.

We're done being invaded.

And I, I heard that and I thought invaded? When did these countries invade us? Oh, he's talking about migrants and immigrants. He doesn't want those people coming here to the U. S. So he wants the U. S. to go in and take over those countries and stabilize them. Not just stabilize them, but take, take over them, colonize them and be in charge of them.

But doesn't he know that if we did that, they would be allowed to come to the U. S. because then they are um, de facto citizens of the U. S. And [00:45:00] so they would be allowed to come to the U. S. still. But I'm guessing he's thinking if we go there and we colonize them and stabilize them that people won't want to leave.

Hmm. No, I don't, I don't think that's, I don't think that's how that worked. Ha He said, you can say that about pretty much all of Africa. They're incapable of governing themselves. All of Africa, every country in Africa is incapable of governing itself. South Africa, Tanzania, Egypt, Morocco, Sierra Leone.

They're all incapable of, of, of, uh, governing themselves. Now, I will say this.

They were all colonized, they are all victims of white imperialism, whether it was from France [00:46:00] or Italy or Great Britain, whether it was from Belgium or Germany. They are all victims of white imperialism.

So to say they are incapable of governing themselves. They were governing themselves just fine until white people showed up and told them that everything they were doing is wrong and that everything white was right and they needed to do everything the white Christian way. And that if they didn't do it, they would all die.

Most of them died anyway. They were murdered, they were slaughtered, and had all of their natural resources and land, um, scooped up by these different foreign countries. So if they are incapable now of governing themselves, it is because they are trying to figure out what the fuck to do. They are trying to figure out what they have left.

to govern what they have left to give to their people after all [00:47:00] of what they had was taken from them. They are trying to figure it out. The fact that they didn't, they haven't figured it out in 50 years or 60 years. Okay. It takes a while. The same way in the U S where inequality, we were still dealing with inequality in the 1970s.

But it's 30, 40 years later, almost 50 years later, and you want us to be over it. You want everything to be, to be equalized. You want everybody to be fine. Everything's fine. Everything is great. You want everything to be cool and good so that you don't have to give handouts to people anymore so that you don't have to give people a break anymore so you don't have to save a slot for a black person in a hiring pool.

You want it to be all done all over. You don't want to have to look at a black person or a handicapped person or Hispanic person or an Indian person. You don't have to look at these people. And then, uh, Prince's, uh, Eric [00:48:00] Prince's. Co host then warned him, of course, you know, Oh, the left, they're not going to like this. People on the left are going to watch this. They're going to say, wait a minute, Eric Prince is talking about being a colonialist again.

And Prince responded, absolutely. Yes. He then thought, he then added that he thought this was a great concept, not just for Africa, but also for Latin America. This is Jingoism. This is Jingoism. This is Jingoism. Jingoism unchained, honey. Jangoism is characterized by extreme nationalism and aggressive foreign policy, and it has a long and complex history in the United States, but that is Jingoism right there.

It can manifest as excessive zeal for the United States, often leading to confrontational attitudes towards other nations. But if you just go and invade them and, you know, kill them and tell them, uh, this is for the best, you won't have to worry about that, [00:49:00] right? That's Jingoism. And it's really ugly. It is ugly. And it can, you know, it could be political rhetoric and military interventions to cultural expressions and economic policies. And we're seeing this in Palestine. We're seeing this in Palestine. But we see this all over the world, wherever the United States is sending money, Hey, you're going to do what we say, or we're not going to give you any more aid.

You're going to live how we live. You're going to have, you're going to install the leader that we want you to install or we're not sending you any more aid. You're going to stop doing this. We're not going to send you any more aid. They call that sanctions. But people like this shit. A lot of people like, you know, Jingoism can rally public support and it can bolster the national identity, but it's only short term [00:50:00] bolstering.

The consequences are far reaching and detrimental. You can't go into somebody's country and just be like, Oh, well, you tried it. Let us, let us, let us take the wheel now. Thanks. These jingoistic rhetoric in actions, they alienate allies, like we're seeing. They erode trust in international institutions, like we are seeing.

And they hinder cooperation on pressing global issues, such as climate change, Pandemics, it just creates domestic divisions and it perpetuates xenophobia, perpetuates racism, perpetuates discrimination against marginalized communities. And it undermines the ideals of equality and inclusion, which I know a lot of U.

1. Americans hate hearing equality and [00:51:00] inclusion and diversity. I'm so sorry. I said those dirty words almost washed my mouth out with soap. But Jingoism and nationalism are not the same, and I feel like sometimes people use these interchangeably, but they're not the same. They're both equally fucked up, but they're not the same. But they do create some of the same attitudes and some of the same, uh, divisions.

The divisiveness that you see in this country. They do exacerbate tensions, both of them. Nationalism is just being strongly identifying with one's nation. Like having a fucking flag pole in your front yard with a giant American flag on it. It creates a sense of superiority and loyalty. People loyal to the U.

S.? Great, yes! I am sworn to uphold the U. S. Constitution, and I do. [00:52:00] And I do. But that does not keep me from criticizing my country, criticizing my country, because I know the history. I know the history. I know the ugliness of people. And I know the ugliness of the history of this country. And I see that a lot of these things are still continuing.

They're just dressed up in different forms. Like poverty today looks different from poverty of the 1920s, but it's still poverty. Racism of today looks a little bit different than the racism of yesterday, but it's still racism. Prejudice of today looks a little bit different. Racial segregation looks a little bit different, but it's still racial segregation.

Like I said, the city of Cleveland, still racially segregated, and this was after bussing. This was after bussing, still racially segregated. It looks a little bit different. You know, everybody looks happy, but the races are [00:53:00] not. They're barely mixing. People are barely learning from each other and attitudes are developing, especially about black people.

And the certain areas of the city, their attitudes about those areas and most of the attitudes come from prejudice and racism about blacks. Oh, but you love the United States. You love it. You love it. And all of these things allow give you the sense of superiority. over people who don't look like you and people who don't have money like you, you may feel pride.

You may feel some unity when you all are all standing up at the baseball game and you're doing the national anthem and you're thinking, Oh, look at us, the sea of folks, and we're all singing it. And then they do God bless America.

And then they do, uh, Hands touching hands touching my [00:54:00] sweet girl. Which is, I don't even want to get into that, what that song is about, but you, you know what I'm, where I'm going. Everybody's feeling good. We're a more U. S. American in America. And we're singing the song of the United States. Hey, sir. Um, could you tell me one thing that you love about the United States?

Yeah. Uh, I can sit here at my, uh, at my job and I can work myself to death to make money just to cover my bills.

I mean, a lot of people are saying that nowadays, they're living paycheck to paycheck, but it's great here. Uh, Again, what I love about the United States is that it is a constitutional democracy that affords people, I know, those bills of rights, freedom of [00:55:00] religion, freedom of press, freedom of this, freedom of that, Miranda Rights.

You know that the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendment were specifically passed. made amendments to the U. S. Constitution for black slaves, specifically for black slaves and black people in the United States, specifically for blacks in the United States.

Ask me how many times those same amendments were ignored by the U. S. government, by U. S. local governments, state governments, by corporations to the detriment of black people. Time and time and time and time and time and time again. But corporations could use the Equal Protection [00:56:00] Clause of the 14th Amendment to assert their rights in courts. And the Supreme Court, local courts, state courts, federal courts, they'd be like, yes, yes. That makes sense. Yes. Yes. I love your application of the 14th amendment. They would use, they would allow claims under the due process clause of the 14th amendment for corporations before they would for black people.

The 14th amendment was, was for black people, the 13th for black people, the 15th for black people. And here it is. Corporations being allowed to use these amendments to assert their rights.

And the US Supreme Court going, Yeah, we have that. That's that makes sense. Here you go here. Yes, you should be allowed to discriminate here. [00:57:00] Yes, you should be allowed to to build on a Native American reservation. Yes, you should be allowed to, uh, divert water from this city. Yes, you should be allowed to allow to do this a lot of data.

Yes, you should be exempt from paying these taxes. And yes, you should be exempt from this. And but it would be decades, decades. After the passage of these amendments that black people would, uh, would be allowed to use them favorably to end discrimination against us, to assert voting rights to have full citizenship rights. But corporations could use them. Corporations were more important than people.

That's what the United States of America is right there. A country that put corporations and still does put [00:58:00] corporations before people. Still! But you all love it here. It's so great, right? Why, why wouldn't anyone want to live here? I can't imagine. I can't, I can't imagine why anyone wouldn't want to live someplace where they put corporations before people.

And forgive me, but I have to remind you people, because apparently a lot of you don't read. The history of the United States is racist ideas, laws of enslavement and inequality, restrictive covenants that didn't allow for blacks and whites to live in the same neighborhoods. The United States was embarrassed into dismantling racial segregation.

Embarrassed. They didn't want to. They did not want to. But because we had come out on top in World War II, because we had declared ourselves leader of the free world after all of that, because the European countries were [00:59:00] in shambles, We were embarrassed. Countries like Russia, communist countries like Russia were looking at us like, Huh?

You call yourself the leader of the free world and you've still got racial segregation? Black people are still having to ride in the back of the bus? They can't even sit at the same lunch counter as whites? You call yourself the leader of the free world? And that made the presidents feel ashamed. Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, maybe not Nixon, he rather enjoyed it.

That made them feel embarrassed. So much so that they're like, Oh, we have to get rid of this. We have to do something. What can we do? Um, um, invite some Negroes to the White House.

But you look at the US now and there's still a lot of, uh, racial disharmony. And it's because these racist [01:00:00] ideas have survived even after desegregation. Even after our first black president, Barack Obama, you know, I've been reading, a lot of books on history and race relations in the U S and they all seem, they, they all get to this point where they have to discuss Barack Obama. And it's like, there's before Barack Obama. And then after Barack Obama, Nothing really got better for race relations after Barack Obama.

And I think it's because a lot of people expected that the election of the first black president would result in things improving between people that that was some kind of like light switch that turned on harmony. And I mean, the man got, uh, the Nobel peace prize because he brought so many people together in such a, uh, a magnificent way.

And it was in a short amount of time and everybody was hoping and holding hands and hope and hope and hope. Hope is [01:01:00] great. But then what did it do? It also brought out a lot of the fucking racist weirdos. They hated having a black president. They hated it. Hated it. Maybe if he had been Republican, they would have liked him, but they hated having a Democrat.

Right. Who was black, who was also president, how dare you? They did everything they could, EVERYTHING they could, to stall. Any meaningful legislation that he wanted to pass. Supreme Court justices that he wanted to seat on the bench. Did everything they could. And then when they got the chance to elect a white man Republican as president, they were like, Yes!

Oh my God! Whitey! And then, more racists started showing their ass. And now because this person, that person, that, former president [01:02:00] made them feel comfortable about being assholes to people. They're all being assholes, all of them. They think it's okay to, to go up to someone and say, why are you here?

You should be speaking English. Go back to your own country. But, these people know, the Republicans, the conservatives, they know what, Lines to spit out to get people to vote for them.

It's this, and this is the same game they've always been playing. White conservatives, the same game they've always been playing. They know, they knew in the 1950s and the 1940s, if they ran on segregation, maintaining segregation, even after, uh, Brown versus the board of education. If they knew that if they ran on segregation, because people still wanted racial segregation, that they were going to win the race.

That's what George Wallace did.

Even after Brown, Brown v. Board of Education, [01:03:00] he changed his tune. He was like, segregation tomorrow. Segregation now. When before he was like, eh, but these people know what to run on. They know. They know. Run on the border crisis. Run on that. Run on, uh, illegals. Run on, uh, all these migrants coming into the U. S. and they're stealing our resources and they're getting welfare. And they're, they're getting food stamps and they're getting da da da da. No, they are not. Please. These people do not get food stamps.

They do not. You have to be a U. S. citizen to get entitlements. You have to be a U. S. citizen to get vouchers. You know, housing vouchers, the things that these people are receiving are coming from aid that the United States government sends to sanctuary cities who are hosting them.

They are also relying on nonprofit organizations to provide clothing and shelter and food to people. [01:04:00] These are things that the United States budget has already budgeted for that the U S has been doing for decades and decades and decades. For some reason, every four years, every presidential election cycle,

it's a problem, they know what to run on. They know what to say to you guys. They know how to ramp up the nationalism and the Jingoism and that gets Americans that gets us Americans going, especially ones who are of a certain persuasion that really gets them going, that really gets them and it gets their nuts hard.

They love hearing that shit. They love hearing that we're going to colonize Latin America and Africa.

 We always have to be the most mighty, mighty, most powerful. We have to be the aggressive one. We have to go in and save everybody. Put on your fucking cake, the United States, save, oh!

People get off on that. They get off on that. Then they get off when somebody gets up at the mic and they're all, yeah, I hate unions [01:05:00] and I hate illegals and I hate Mexico and I want to build a big wall up to heaven so illegals can get in. And I hate women and I don't like abortion. We're going to save all the fetuses and then we're going to make them serve in the army when we go and colonize these countries.

It's, it's insane. It's ridiculous. And this is what I'm seeing, the rhetoric I'm seeing all over social media, all over the TV. I'm seeing people being interviewed. The, the news media interviewed this one guy, and he was um, talking about why he wouldn't vote for Nikki Haley for president. And he said, oh, because women, you know, they belong in the kitchen.

A woman, a woman can talk, she can, she can work, but she can't do this job. No, too many emotions. Too many emotions. If I could, men are some of the most emotional fucking creatures. And it's fine. It's fine to be emotional. It is fine to be [01:06:00] emotional. It's fine. Yes, but to make it seem like women are the only ones who are crying and who are angry and get upset and who rage and who Scream

it ain't true, buddy. Ask me how I know

Gosh now I was trying to think of the name of the organization that um that has that that case before the US Supreme Court now and the name of the organization is the the fearless fund, the fearless fund right now is under attack. Like many organizations now, white conservatives are going after these organizations for only providing funds to racial minorities or.

Just to women or to trans women or to, you know, disabled people. They don't want, they want [01:07:00] white people to have the same access to funds, private funds, by the way, not public funds, private funds. They want them all. And the argument from the fearless fund is that these funds are free speech. Money is free speech.

The Supreme Court says so. They said so. They also said corporations are people. Can't walk it back now. Money is speech. They can give it to whoever the fuck they want.

It's important. It's important for representation to be had at certain levels. And black women Pursuing their business goals. It's important to see black women pursuing their business goals, but people are upset about it. It's important for black children to be able to go on to higher education and people are upset.

People are upset because, Oh, but my white child wants to go, go to college too, but affirmative action. You think they're just letting dumb ass black kids into college? No, you still got to get in. [01:08:00] You still have to pass the admission standards. You can't just be black. Love a Pete, but it's important for us to be there.

But now you know why it's so hard for us to get there. You know, you need to understand why it's important for us to be there. And if you don't think it's important to see blacks and Asians and Hispanics in colleges and universities, well then I can not help you with anything, honey. You don't see the importance of diversity and inclusion and equity.

I pray to God that you are never disabled or handicapped. I pray to God that you never have a black child, that you never have to suffer through any of these inequalities that we all have had to suffer through. As recently as the 19, Oh, you know what? I will say as recently as the 1990s because of the crack epidemic.

And when [01:09:00] crack and law enforcement in prison was used against black people, Creating that caste system where blacks were sent to prison as one way to, to control us and curtail our movements introducing crack into the black neighborhoods and using the police to round us up on drug charges, drug possession charges, drug distribution charges.

So it's really been. It's never been over. The inequality has not ended for us. The, the caste system is ongoing. The oppression for black people in the United States has never stopped. So, who the fuck cares if somebody wants to give us a thousand dollars to start a business or a ten thousand dollar scholarship to go to college when it costs fifty thousand dollars a year?

Who cares if we get 10, [01:10:00] 000 from the government to do it? It's still 40, 000 we gotta come up with. You think these affirmative actions and these grants, we're going somewhere and we're just skipping down the halls because we got it all taken care of? No. No. It's a drop in the bucket. But for us, it means a lot I'm an attorney. I have a son who was in college. My son is in college on a football scholarship. His mother works for Uncle Sam. I'm not wealthy. I'm not a wealthy attorney. I'm not, you know, on TV attorney. I'm a public service attorney. We're not living high off the hog here, honey.

Black people have to be fucking talented and exceptional to get ahead. We gotta be the magical Negroes. We gotta be the fucking magical black boy, magic black girl, magic super fucking heroes to get ahead [01:11:00] in this country. And so what? The government decided to cut us a break. It's not hurting you. It actually helps you to see other people in the workplace who don't look like you. But because you want to feel superior over people, you challenge it. You think somebody is taking an opportunity away from you.

 No. They are creating opportunities for people who don't look like you

this has been Ayanna Explains It All brought to you by Facts, Figures, and Enlightenment. Take care. [01:12:00]