I take it you haven’t read many of the essays in my book. If you had, you’d understand that what we’re living through right now is more than just a political moment... it’s spiritual, ancestral, and deeply existential. It echoes with the unresolved cries of generations, and those echoes are growing louder with each passing day.
On July 5, 1852, Frederick Douglass delivered his landmark address in Rochester, New York: "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?" In it, he dismantled the moral façade of a nation celebrating freedom while millions remained enslaved. He did not speak with politeness; he spoke with prophetic fire. His words still burn today:
"This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn."
Douglass saw the contradiction for what it was... national hypocrisy. The celebration of "justice, liberty, prosperity, and independence" was exclusive, reserved for white citizens. For the Black body, the holiday was a cruel reminder of exclusion and erasure.
Fast forward to today, and we find ourselves facing a modern resurrection of that hypocrisy. With the passing of Trump's "Big Beautiful Bill" ... a legislative monstrosity crafted in ideological partnership with the Heritage Foundation... America is regressing. Their version of "Make America Great Again" is not a return to values, but a calculated effort to undo civil rights progress. It's a spiritual rollback, a revocation of dreams paid for in blood by those who marched, sat-in, and died for freedom.
This isn't merely about one man or one administration. It's about the systemic design. Trump's movement, emboldened by think tanks and cloaked in nationalism, represents a continuation of white supremacy... not just as policy, but as identity. And White America, by and large, remains aloof. Even the liberal-minded, those who claim allyship, are often complicit through silence, comfort, or the refusal to surrender their inherited privilege.
The legacy of that hypocrisy endures in modern political movements that seek to roll back hard-won progress. The Trump administration’s policies, amplified by the Heritage Foundation and his political allies under the banner of “Make America Great Again,” have systematically targeted civil rights advancements. These efforts are not merely political maneuvers; they are assaults on the sacrifices of generations of Black and Brown Americans who fought (and often died) for equality. The erosion of voting rights, the dismantling of affirmative action, and the resurgence of racially charged rhetoric reveal a disturbing continuity: the belief that some Americans are more entitled to freedom than others.
This regression is sustained, in part, by the complacency of white America... including those who consider themselves allies. Too often, liberal-minded white individuals remain passive, insulated by privilege, unwilling or unable to fully confront systemic injustice. Their detachment perpetuates the very inequities they claim to oppose.
At this point, I am so over Europeans... not individuals, but the construct: the collective consciousness that has refused to reckon with its own history, that continues to center itself even in the face of collective suffering.
As Susan L. Taylor, former editor-in-chief of Essence magazine, once wrote: sometimes, for your own survival, your own sanity, your own spiritual evolution, you must say to people, “I choose to grow on without you.”
So, let me be clear. I’m not asking. I’m not pleading. I’m not explaining anymore. I’m officially divorcing White America... not the individuals who have walked in solidarity, but the system, the mindset, the refusal to change. I choose to grow on. We choose to grow on. Without you!
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