Nottoway Plantation burned down the week before last, and the world just found out that a Confederate museum had a tree fall on top, destroying the building. Karma notwithstanding, there are a bunch of people who were arguing that the plantation was a historic symbol and site which should be preserved. In reality, the plantation was not being used to tell a story, but host weddings and other events. Those pretty lies were used to rebrand a place of violence, and the truth is that rebranding evil does not cause evolution.
For years, people have tried to change the stories about the United States by pretending that everyone was always meant to be included. Rather than accept that the empire was used to exploit, people would cling to the delusions circulated for marketing. People lied to tell themselves that stolen people benefited from enslavement, and they lied that marching in the streets changed policies. These lies have helped maintain the division between those who are tired of being exploited, and those who benefit from exploitation.
What we are finally learning is that institutions do not exist to evolve; they change staff. Putting Black people in public office within an empire may look like change, but one should consider how the machine behaves. Do institutions listen to their own rebranding, or do they force Black leadership out the moment it threatens the lies? Are people really responding to the community engagement from Black people, or are they noting it before dismissing it?
At the end of the day, people do not necessarily change, but they will reveal who they are, and folks have the right to respond. The re-election of someone who clearly hates Black people for no reason proves that this nation was waiting for an opportunity to regain control of its “servants.” The states who are gleefully running to bigotry were merely waiting for the right moment, and the pearl-clutching suburbanites are frantic that people are not rushing to sell their lies anymore. There is no way an empire can be “improved,” and all the manic efforts to pretend otherwise will fail.
Chasing A Dying Empire 