Hampton Roads Community News
Our American Potential
By Sean C. Bowers
The dream of a better (tyrant-free) nation has always been a sacred goal that we have striven for, even knowing true perfection is unattainable. This means no one group, party or person has a lock on the best or only right way to ensure that our nation continues to grow and prosper in ways of fairness.
Understanding that change to government and the system can and will only be done through our legal system, the courts, and by the will of the people, via their participatory votes in scheduled elections.
There is no other path to change the system other than the will of the people’s vote! Threats of violence, taking up arms, and desires for a civil war must be dealt with in the exact same way they were in the 1860’s, by Abraham Lincoln’s legendary Union-preserving directives. The Union is more important than a few million rebellious Americans who seek to take the law into their own treasonous hands, as witnessed on January 6th, 2021.
Those who conspire, rebel and violently stand against the United States (for any reason) must be dealt with swiftly and effectively. They must be held accountable in the courts for their illegal trespasses of our American democratic republic. Attempting to conflate issues, knowingly misdirect facts, and historically mislead history are all signs of the shrinking White minority’s inability to deal with the changing tides of America’s racial, sexual, class-based, and religious make up.
For all those who know better, who are peace-loving responsible Americans, the time is now to let your votes reflect the type of inclusive America we want going forward.
There are those who masquerade as leaders, who have been since unmasked as the self-serving double-dipping, parasites they are. Seeing them for exactly what they are is the key. Prompted solely by greed, theirs is a highway to hell only they want to travel down.
Let us look at our history for our “North Star”-our guiding light to true justice, equality and equity. When Lincoln ended slavery in the 1860’s, America finally threw off the shackles that had flawed her inception since her birth. The nation struggled, but survived, and became stronger more balanced land. When women were empowered with the vote in the 1920’s, America again went through a transition process that became more representatively correct and fair.
We White people of America must understand that we do the right thing now, because it is just and the right thing to do, or we shortsightedly try to hold onto the unfair power structure advantages we have so long enjoyed while punishing the rest of America.
Should we not live up to our own potential set in marble words etched into the Lincoln, Jefferson, Washington, and Martin Luther King Jr, memorials on the Washington, D.C. National Mall? It is time to responsibly face the mass wrath of the masses of non-Whites we abused, held down, and held back during the past four centuries. America has always stood for ensuring and expanding rights of her people, until the recent Supreme Court decision that stripped away women’s control-their “50-year rights”- over their own bodies.
The path ahead maybe difficult, but we, as Americans, have already proven that we are most capable and worthy of repeatedly performing positive transformative change for the betterment of all our people.
Do we only want to extend a portion of America’s promise to every American? Or are we too selfish and too self-absorbed to understand it is not just those who are damaged by the continued oppression of racism, sexism, classism, and religious persecution? Oppressors do irrevocable damage to themselves, their children and the nation by extending politics of hatred and exclusion rather than justice and love.
It is time to embrace our diversity as the positive strength it is, once and for all. If not, the winds of change, the pent-up negative energy of systemic regressive oppression will consume us all. Ask yourself, what would Jesus do? Know that the forgiveness of God will not smile and reflect kindly upon us if we do not extend the same kindness to others, that we so often self-righteously demand and expect. Judgement day is voting day November 8th, 2022. Cast your ballot and vote for a caste-free America.
Sean C. Bowers has written the last twenty-five years, as a White Quaker Southern man, for the nations’ third oldest Black Newspaper, the New Journal and Guide, of Norfolk, VA, about overcoming racism, sexism, classism, and religious persecution. Some of his latest NJ&G articles detailing the issues can found by searching “Sean C. Bowers” on the NJ&G website. Contact him directly on social media at Linkedin.com or by e-mail V1ZUAL1ZE@aol.com NNPA 2019 Publisher of the Year, Brenda H. Andrews (NJ&G 35 years) has always been his publisher.
