Let’s break down change quickly. And I do mean quickly. I have less than an hour to write this.

In our brains, our most basic instincts say that what we know is safe. What we don’t know is unsafe. What we know, where we are currently, could be hell on earth. Yet our reptilian brains will say, oh that is safe. Because it’s known.

Anyone who has gone through massive change knows this. There is a moment where you must just have faith and take inspired action – knowing you don’t have the answers. And you won’t have them so you must just go for it. There isn’t another option or you won’t leave the place you’re desperately trying to leave.

I think we’re seeing this on a societal level. We have people pushing for massive change every single day. We have Americans who have been fighting for a better America since its inception. And there are always naysayers.

The people who say, well what if things are worse?

At this moment in time, I ask, could it get worse? Absolutely. It always can. But have we hit the inflection point? Have enough Americans decided that even though this place is known? We won’t stay here.

Have enough of our friends and neighbors been detained, murdered, disappeared? Have we started enough wars? Has our health insurance denied, killed, or bankrupted enough of our loved ones? Have we woken up to the fact that millions of Americans are addicted to drugs because life has become so hard to make it sober? Has our rent gotten high enough? Do we have enough subscriptions? Has enough of our public money been used to enrich a man that was best friends with Jeffrey Epstein?

Have we had enough yet?

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Safe is in air quotes, because it’s never a reaction that actually makes you feel safe. It’s an action that brings you back into the known. The known is a place that makes your brain feel safe, but it could easily be hell on Earth. The worst place you’ve ever been. The unknown to our reptilian brains, is unsafe. And that’s why change feels so big and scary. Our brains tell us it’s not safe. Not because it’s actually unsafe, but because it’s unknown.

And I think we’re seeing that on a societal scale in the United States. Walk with me. Many of us are ready for real societal change. And many people are working towards massive change. And have been since the Declaration of Independence was written.

Like Elizabeth Freeman, who heard the words, “all men are created equal,” and sued for her own freedom in 1781. Her court case led to the abolition of slavery in the state of Massachusetts Bay.

Like Marsha P Johnson, a cofounder of STAR, Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries, a leader in the Stonewall uprising, and a person who demanded a better life for all LGBTQ+ in the United States.

Like Brother Flip - Charles Crowley, an Attica prisoner whose famous quote hits me very hard almost every single day fifty plus years later. He said, “if we cannot live as humans, we’ll at least try to die as men,” before they took over the prison to demand better for every prisoner.

Frank Serpico, who took on the NYPD and its corruption and almost lost his own life.

Fred Hampton, who crossed racial lines, and did lose his own life when he was murdered by the state.

Today, we see people like Chris Smalls, our modern day Amazon labor leader, who is one of the most influential labor leaders of our time. Taking on a giant like Amazon and getting the first union organized.

Malik Muhammed, a Black Lives Matter activist, who is currently in jail.

Mahmoud Khalil, a student activist, who was imprisoned falsely for speaking out about genocidal atrocities that our country is paying for.

There are and there have been people pushing for change since our country’s inception. We have them today, but we’re being drawn back. The “safe space” that we’ve known is drawing us back. We’re in the dark period before the dawn and that massive change requires risk, action, and hope.

Our equilibrium as a country is white men leading us. It’s our “safe” space. Safe in quotes again, because it’s not really safe is it? Look where it’s gotten us. We’re near total fascism, we have standing armies in the streets. We have detention centers that are for profit, popping up everywhere. We’re absolutely in an oligarchy, where the wealthiest among us have bought their way into our government. A small group of people are restricting our voting rights, our healthcare, our decisions we make with our own bodies. Our earth is being destroyed, we’ve been at war almost every single year of our 250 years of existence. We’re exporting hatred, right wing movements, and racism across the country.

And yet, earlier this week. There were calls for a woman who is a veteran and primary winner to step aside for a white man to run. If you missed it, a third party candidate jumped into the Montana Senate race. A white man, showed up with a million dollars in his campaign pockets. Ostensibly, a Democrat, running as an Independent because he “knows Democrats can’t win in Montana.” People called for Alani Bankhead to drop out, and I believe it’s not because she wasn’t qualified, and it’s not because she didn’t win her primary, but because Seth Bodnar, the white man, seems like a safe bet.

A “safe” bet. People said he’s got more money, he’s the only hope of a win. She must drop out. We don’t know where this man’s coming from. But people clung to him like he was the great white whale, the savior that would flip Montana Blue. I know it’s fear talking. I know it’s the moment where people say oh no, a risk is too great right now. We’ll settle for less because it may be safer. It probably won’t be. We don’t know him or have any inclination of what will happen between now and November or what will come out.

AND YET, multiple white creators demanded that Seth was the only option. People with hundreds of thousands of followers, under the guise of Alani being unelectable without the support and money he has. Between the handful I saw, they could have raised her about the money she’d need to get elected.

And the real irony here is we’ve tried this a million times before. We’ve put our blind faith into white men who are outsiders in the system, who don’t have a political background, but have the money to get elected. While it works occasionally, the VAST majority of the time, these men have made things worse.

AND I know we’re scared and I know that people want to win and change the trajectory of this country, but we need to actually change the underlying equilibrium. Which means taking the risk on a dark horse candidate. Showing up everyday with massive action and leading with hope not fear. It can be done, it has been, we know it has been.

Nothing changes if nothing changes - and while a candidate like Seth Bodnar seems like the change is there, we know he’s pretty much a carbon copy of the men who got us into the position we are in now. So dive in, make change at the level you’re at now, it will reverberate into the society at large, but do not fall back on “we need to do what we’ve always done,” it won’t save us now.

{post script}

I know I am walking contradiction. I want a new constitution, but I am working for a candidate that is running in 2026. I know we must turn the fire hose off. I know that and midterms are our opportunity to do it. We can all have short term and long term goals, and mine is a new constitution.

Ours has been loopholed into oblivion. It’s based in minority rule, and there will always be people using our founding document to disenfranchise people. To draw us back to our equilibrium of minority rule. Every time I think about the massive change our country needs, it draws me back to a new constitution. I don’t ever want to see generations of work upended by a supreme court case like Louisiana vs Callais. I don’t ever want to see Supreme Court Justices like Chief Justice John Roberts work for decades to rip apart section two of the Voting Rights Act. I want something new that protects ALL OF US. Protects our Earth. Maintains our Voting Rights.

We’re allowed to be scared, but we must take inspired action. Inspired by hope, understanding that change will come and we are stronger when we work together.

In my capacity as Ashley Bell’s Campaign Manager for her congressional run in NC-10th District, I was lucky to hear Dawn Blagrove speak yesterday. She’s the Executive Director of Emancipate North Carolina, and her biography is a lifetime of work that speaks volumes.

We were at an event called Freedom Rising, and while she spoke, I soaked in the words that no one person has ever made change alone. The Civil Rights movement was ordinary people doing extraordinary things, and she mentioned Martin Luther King Junior, Malcolm X, SNCC, and Rosa Parks, and reminded all of us that Martin Luther King Junior and Malcolm X made speeches that moved people. But Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Acts because of the will of the people. Ordinary people doing extraordinary things in extraordinary times.

And it just slapped me like a ton of bricks. I almost cried. Not because I didn’t know it, but because we’re living this today. It is exactly why I make the content I make - to remind every single person that the people who came before us were regular people who built undeniable movements. They created lasting change we still feel today.

I’ve said it nearly one thousand times, the reason we continue to be divided, the reason the wealthiest and most powerful want us separated, be it by class, creed, religion, or otherwise is because when we join in community, when we work together; we remember how powerful we are.

And a people powered movement is a threat. It’s a threat to the status quo, it’s a threat to the worldview we’ve operated under for so long. That many of us were raised in and propagandized around.

And that worldview is that if you have money, you’re more important than others. And that couldn’t be further from the truth. Our strength doesn’t come from money or dollar signs (though we need it to live), it comes from the communities we can build and the bridges that get us there.

This moment in time calls for extraordinary actions from ordinary people. And it is truly happening all around us. It can be hard to focus when we know that our country is in a free fall into fascism, but we’ve stood up to tyranny before. And we’ll do it again. We deserve better, but we must demand it.

When I say that phrase, people love to remind me, we deserve what we got. The people decide to elect who they’d like, and the majority of Americans decided that Trump was the answer. Well Trump has a thirty something approval rating.

And I’ve decided that 30 something is the 30 something that wants to carry the torch of racism and white supremacy. Who wants the division in the country, and who wants people to stand on. Which leaves 60 to 70% of the country to rally. Not just for midterms, not just for 2026 or 2028, but for real meaningful change.

Voting will never be the end all be all and expecting one election to reverse hundreds of years of work in the wrong direction is delusional. It’s 2026, 2028, and beyond, but I know that we’re worth it, and we can do it.

We have to start with naming the problem. And it is the systems and structures of white supremacy baked into our government at every single level. It’s also the white narcissism, bordering on white psychosis, that comes along with our systems and structures favoring white Americans. We have to address our two tiered judicial system, the pay for play nature of our government, the corruption around us, the prison systems, the electoral system, and so much more.

The reason it feels so insurmountable at this moment is because we’ve allowed it to get this far. Hundreds of years of white supremacy and we no longer call it white supremacy. We don’t say it aloud these days like Governor Olin D Johnston said after the Smith v Allwright decision in 1944. He said, and I am quoting here from White Lies by AJ Baime,

“We will have done everything within our power to guarantee white supremacy in our primaries and in our State in so far as legislation is concerned. Should this prove to be inadequate, we South Carolinians will use the necessary methods to retain white supremacy in our primaries and to safeguard the homes and happiness of our people. White supremacy will be maintained in our primaries. Let the chips fall where they may.”

George Wallace is no longer screaming about segregation now or forever, but the sentiment is the same. And it’s the same because it’s hundreds of years old. It’s written into our laws, it’s quieter (yet very loud) within our society, but we have the capacity to change it. And I know that. It was reaffirmed listening to Dawn Blagrove yesterday. It’s reaffirmed in every conversation I have on this campaign, every door I knock, and every phone call made.

We deserve better, and have to demand it. And ordinary people have to lead the charge. We can do this, I can feel it in my bones.

My ask today is to join a campaign. Volunteer, get involved, host a house party, a virtual phone bank, something. I believe in US and WE THE PEOPLE, deserve better.

I’m registered as a Democrat because I vote in New York City. Not anymore. I’m changing my registration to be in North Carolina. I’ve officially left New York City for now - though she’ll always be there and I’ll always be happy to return and I will one day.

But I haven’t felt at home in the Democratic Party for years, if ever. The Democratic Party that I learned about in books - the one that drew us out of the Great Depression, the one that signed the Civil Rights Acts has been long gone.

I make history content, I live and breathe politics. I am running a Democratic campaign in North Carolina (Ashley Bell, check her out). And yet, I am not sure that I am a Democrat.

What a time to be alive. There is a real reckoning with the power structures that exist and Democrats are not immune to it. Because that same party that pulled us out of the Great Depression, used HUD to build segregation into cities that didn’t have it. That same party that signed the Civil Rights Acts that many Black Americans died for, has done quite literally nothing to help them since.

That same party who espoused working class rights has all but forgone workers for corporate interests, media buys, and more. The rural vote has been forgotten. The party has followed the money. And following the money makes groups do all manners of sins.

The Democratic Party played the same game the Republicans made up in the wake of the Powell Memo. A memo written in 1971 by Lewis F Powell junior, a corporate attorney who stated that corporations should get involved in politics. Who mapped out the modern conservative movement 55 years ago. It leaked in 1972, while he was going through nomination hearings for the Supreme Court. And a few people raised a flag and said, “Hello! Have you seen this?” He began his Supreme Court term on January 7, 1972 and he would stay there until 1987.

From the Powell Memo, the Heritage Foundation is born. The Moral Majority is born. The think tanks are born. Citizens United is a direct descendent.

And rather than rejecting the new rules of engagement set forth by the Powell Memo, the Democrats leaned in. Money was more important than ever, how can we possibly beat that kind of money without using it ourselves?

So the rural voters were forgotten, the working class voters were forgotten, the Black voters were forgotten. All for the money.

And now that people running under the Democratic banner are running on individual contributions, are running on Medicare for All, are running on true progressive values – the Democratic hardliners are mad? We’re just doing what we used to do.

And not everyone running like this falls into the category of Democratic Socialist or “leftist”, some are just true progressives.

We were told to join the party to change the party. And these candidates are winning, and now it’s very much:

Hell of a time to be working for a candidate fits into these buckets. Who has been told to swing more moderate to win a primary. To swing more moderate to flip a seat. But the watered down version of Democrats isn’t what people want anymore and it hasn’t been for years. People are desperately on the hunt for leadership that inspires. And that requires taking a stance. Middle of the road isn’t going to cut it any more.

All that to say is, the winners are going to be the people who listen and adapt to what people need. Who are not prescribing how to feel, but are hearing people and finding the common ground.

You can hear me talk about this more here.

White women have awoken - sort of. Many are running for office and many are leading different organizations and many are puzzled as to where to fit in.

There are organizations all over the country fighting back against the Trump administration, registering voters, organizing mutual aid and more.

If you find yourself googling and unable to find one may I suggest that you take to social media and search in your area. The reason I say all of this is because many white women are trying to start organizations that already exist that they could fit right into. And we’re stronger when we work together.

The biggest challenge I see though is that (especially for liberal white women) many haven’t done any work yet on the inside. That’s why I started this essay exactly this way. Because many organizations in the United States have been founded and are led by non white folks. They’ve been operating for years. Because they had to. Creating community in the face of an adversarial government is a survival mechanism.

Black Americans. Indigenous Americans. Immigrant Americans. They all have different lived experiences than we white ladies do. So joining an organization that is already plugged in often means being led by a non white person. Who is LIKELY more experienced than you.

Many of us lead with our ego and I say this from experience. Ignoring the historical context of white women trying to take over movements while creating a hierarchy of some sort.

Now isn’t the time for ego. It’s the time for hard work, community, and building on systems that already work.

So if you’re a white liberal woman who is consciously or subconsciously ignoring the needs of the marginalized groups around you - it’s time to look inwards and change the vibe inside.

We all suffer under the systems of white supremacy and we all have what I like to call factory settings. Our factory settings, as white Americans, defaults to supremacistic tendencies. I’ve watched white women who claim to be anti racist default back to it as soon as they were asked to be accountable for their actions. I’ve felt my own chest tighten up in a moment of accountability. It’s our jobs as adults to learn that trigger and shut it the fuck down.

So if you feel the need to start something new so you can lead it or think that your version may be better than something that’s been around for 60, 80, or 100 years. I need you to dig in and find out why? Is it because you have more skills or is because you’ve been told and taught by the structures around you that your exceptional when you’re not.

If you’re asking why I am bringing this up now? Well I talk about racism on the left a LOT. Mostly over on TikTok and Instagram, but it’s worth talking about everywhere.

As you may or may not know, I joined the Ashley Bell Campaign for Congress. I joined her campaign because she deeply understands the racial history of our country. She deeply understands medical racism and is going to DC to fight for better medical outcomes for all of us. And she knows that rising tides bring up all ships.

You can follow along with the campaign @ashleybellforcongress on Insta and Threads and soon to be YouTube. You can sign up to donate or volunteer wherever you are in the country. I hope to see you soon at one of our volunteer trainings.

I’ve had the opportunity to go work with Ashley Bell in North Carolina and Jeromie Whalen in Massachusetts. Both are wonderful candidates and you need to check them out.

Jeromie is running against a 36 year incumbent and Jeromie, himself, is about that age. He’s running to unseat a Democrat in the primary which is September 1. He’s a teacher, he’s a community leader, and he’s up against the biggest fundraiser in the Democratic Party. He’s running against big money and needs your help. If you’re in the Northeast, you need to check him out. He’ll be a great addition to the coalition in DC fighting for so many things. Like raising taxes on billionaires, changing the healthcare system, and of course, as a teacher. Education. You can check our entire episode out here.

Ashley is challenging Pat Harrigan - a MAGA yes man, a one term incumbent who lost to Jeff Jackson in Mecklenburg County and moved to run in North Carolina’s 10th Congressional District. Ashley is a fifteen year healthcare veteran and she’s fighting for a more equitable health care system. I spent one month with Ashley Bell in February prior to the primary – and she’s the embodiment of the type of leader I want to see in Washington DC. An expert in her field, no nonsense, and laser focused on solutions. Watch our episode from before the primary here.

So I decided to join her campaign. What does that mean for me? I’m moving to Winston Salem! What does that mean for you? I’ll still be putting out episodes weekly on The Foolish Optimist, some content weekly, and I am planning to continue one Substack every week.

But we need your help. I am employed by her campaign (this is my disclosure and I will continue to disclose every time I talk about the campaign) and I will ask for money. If you’re looking for someone who will fight to change the entire healthcare system - to make it better for patients, to make it better for workers, to create a system that will last for generations of Americans, donate a few bucks to Ashley Bell. And if you’re not involved on any campaign yet, I hope you jump in. Wherever you are. Volunteer, donate, make calls, texts, every little bit helps. And it helps at every single level.

We have a wholesale assault on our democracy and the first step is to shut the faucet off to the runaway executive overreach and we can do that in November. But it takes every single person getting in the game to win.

From the campaign trail with love,

Amy McDonald

I am writing this out in an effort to spur people to action. Because we have an epidemic on our hands, and it’s been going on far too long. We the people, especially white folks, need to stand up and demand justice for our neighbors.

I am writing this on the 10th anniversary of Philando Castile’s death (July 6th, 2026). A 32 year Black man killed by the police, by our government, in front of his partner and her child. Nine years and 364 days later, another young Black man was killed by our government. Tyrin Johnson was killed by the National Guard in Memphis on July 5th, 2026. The similarities - they both had guns and they were both parents, they were both sons, grandsons, members of the community.

Philando Castile had a permit for his gun. While Tyrin Johson was in an open carry state. A permit-less open carry state. Tennessee does state that you need to be 21 years of age to open carry, and Tyrin Johnson was 20 years old. But I don’t think the National Guardsmen knew that. How could they?

Just like Philando Castile, the guardsmen seem to have shot and asked questions later. Two shots to the chest. For carrying a gun. In an open carry state. CNN and the NY Times both state that he just had the gun, not aimed at them and not shooting. And he’s gone. Just like Philando Castile.

Since 2016, the police have killed 11,000 people per mappingpoliceviolence.org. This year alone, 623 people have died at the hands of our police forces and it’s July 6th. We’re halfway through the year. Last month, Kohen Wiley, a one year old, was shot by police in a Walmart parking lot. Per the autopsy report, his death is being ruled a homicide. Which is incongruent with police findings. Which means, in fancy words, they lied.

Two young men, one baby – three different generations of Black boys taken from this world at the hands of the state.

These are direct violence. Shot and killed. But there is structural violence happening as well. Karmelo Anthony is working on an appeal, which is great news. However, a similar case happened no less than 150 miles away. A few years prior, a young man was stabbed and killed after a fight in school. The jury in that case sentenced the then 21 year old to two years probation. A judge added ten years in prison for assault with a deadly weapon. He was white, of course. Karmelo Anthony received 35 years.

I bring up Karmelo Anthony because of what happened with Nolan Wells. As of the 6th of July, his body has been found. He went boating on the 4th with three white college aged young men. He never came home. They had his phone. They left him on an island ten miles away from the shore. A barrier reef island.

There is a through line from Karmelo Anthony to Nolan Wells. Being a Black boy or man in this country around white folks is dangerous as fuck. Karmelo Anthony testified that he feared for his life. And had he not acted, would he be another Nolan Wells?

And then. In the wake of Nolan Wells - Black Americans across the country came forward to tell their own stories. And white Americans have denied their life experiences. I’ve seen countless stories of Black Americans explaining their own lived experience - what they have lived through and people have consistently disregarded their own lived experiences. This is violence.

The epidemic of violence against young Black men in this country is never ending. It’s coming from all angles, the police and the government, the judicial system, the friends they keep, and not one of these men were given any singular benefit of the doubt.

We white folks, we get the benefit of the doubt every fucking day. Even in death, Nolan Wells isn’t given the benefit of the doubt, nor is his mother. People are criticizing decisions made on the worst day of this family’s life. And yet, all over the internet I have seen white folks ask people to be patient. “We don’t have the facts yet, we can’t skewer these folks without knowing the facts.”

I’ve got the facts I need. Four young men went out on a boat. Three returned. The only one missing was Black. The white boys had his cellphone. They didn’t report him missing. They didn’t answer the phone when I am sure his mother called. They had two days to organize. And they’ve lawyered up. AND YET there are people defending these folks.

I need white America to wake up. I talk about white supremacy and the system of it that we live under so goddamn always because many of my brethren pretend like it doesn’t exist. Like if we don’t talk about it, it’ll go away. BUT FUCK DUDE. I am so sick of seeing people in our country die. I am sick of watching white folks give white folks more and more chances, the benefit of the doubt, and victim blame.

The urge to give a white man the benefit of the doubt MUST be resisted. It needs to be taught to our children, it needs to be a conversation every day. Because deciding that making white men (or white people) comfortable at the expense of others is killing us.

There are a million other types of violence as well. Not believing people when they tell you their stories is also violence, as we saw around Nolan Wells’s death. We always extend white men this opportunity. And if you’re a white woman, you probably understand this type of violence… TO AN EXTENT.

I do believe it’s why I’ve had an easier time in life explaining racism to white women rather than white men. But my heart is aching and I am angry. In the time I started and finished this piece I learned about three more Black Americans dying and countless more being missing.

When are we (collectively, but mostly addressing white Americans) going to stand up and demand that this needs to end??

I ask this as I ponder the main theme of my content. Which is wanting a new constitution. Nay, demanding it. Because what kind of country allows this? What kind of “democracy” doesn’t protect all of its people the same way? What kind of world do we want to pass on to the next generations?

The world we live in today in the United States is a surveillance state that targets non-white people at a much higher rate. We’ve seen it with ICE raids, with police stops, with everything under the sun. We know we have a two tiered justice system. We know that Black and Brown bodies get investigated less. We know that the system we live under incentivizes that with private prison populations and so much more.

I am not sure we can reform this and do not misquote me when I say this, because I am not a burn it all down person. I am a carefully rewire it so we keep as many people alive as possible person, while changing hearts and minds AND LAWS so it can never happen again.

The real problem is and always has been the marriage of white supremacy and capitalism (don’t worry the patriarchy is in there too). But the existential problem is stamping out white supremacy. White Americans have either led the way in creating the systems and structures of white supremacy or depending on the time period and power levels we’ve allowed it to flourish.

For example, we consistently loop in time. I wrote about it last week, but right now we’re entering an era that looks like the end of Reconstruction and beginning of Jim Crow. And the technocrats have stated they’re looking for workers to feed their machines. Sam Altman said he wants intelligence on tap, on a subscription service. The Voting Rights Act was just gutted in three moves by the Supreme Court. A direct mirror to what happened after the Civil War when the Supreme Court gutted the 14th and 15th Amendments in three court cases over twenty years.

We have oligarchs again – the Robber Barons are alive and well, but they’re now richer and more quietly violent than the train and mining Robber Barons of the 1800s. We have a pay for play political system, just like the spoils system of the late 1800s. One Robber Barron of the 1800s literally said he could hire half the working class to kill the other half. And that’s exactly where we are.

We know that companies who donated to Donald Trump’s inaugural fund are getting big breaks from state run lawsuits. From Public Citizen, at least 11 of these cases have been dropped. But bigger than that we’re watching companies and technocrats marry into our government. This time last year four tech executives were sworn into the US Army as Lieutenant Colonels. Why? For innovation of course. Because we know the majority of these tech companies are innovating at a breakneck speed (sarcasm).

To move towards anything that resembles class consciousness, we first have to dismantle white supremacy and there has to be a will within the people to do it. But stepping out of the culture of whiteness for white folks isn’t just scary, it can be dangerous. It’s not danger from outside your race, it’s from inside. I say this as someone who spends their time speaking about race on the internet and has been fending off rape and death threats for over a year.

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Our constitution is based in minority rule, our equilibrium is ripping rights away from people, and that’s what constitutional originalists want. I am so sick of this fucking document haunting us for last 200 + years.

One of my favorite content creators and someone I call a friend, Cerille Nassau, aka Dirty South History, a lawyer out of Atlanta, Georgia, explicitly said to me that in law we look to the Declaration of Independence to expand rights and the Constitution to contract them.

Six weeks ago, the Supreme Court ruled in Louisiana vs Callais, that the second section of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was unconstitutional. The second section of the Voting Rights Act was created in an effort to make sure that minorities, specifically Black Americans, had representation. Why? Because for 100 years after slavery ended, they had none. So in total, Black Americans had over 300 years of no representation. So the VRA was written explicitly to protect that. Now, it’s been sixty years since the VRA was passed and signed by Lyndon Baines Johnson after a bloody battle across the country led by a multigenerational effort to get Black Americans the right to vote.

My parents were eight when that passed. They were eight. Every single person alive today, knows someone who was alive during the 60s.

Now, you may be asking why did we need the Voting Rights Act in the first place? The Reconstruction amendments had that covered. The 13th Amendment outlawed the practice of slavery with the exception of being convicted of a crime. The 14th Amendment gave birthright citizenship. And the 15th Amendment enshrined the right to vote. So why, 100 years later, did we have to explicitly give Black Americans the right to vote, create equitable districts, and more in a series of Civil Rights Act passed?

Because another Supreme Court, under Chief Justice Melvin Fuller, passed Plessy v Ferguson in 1896. Another Supreme Court, 130 years ago, decided that the 14th and 15th Amendment weren’t shit. And they gutted them. They didn’t repeal them, just as the Roberts Court didn’t repeal the Voting Rights Act. They ripped it apart in multiple steps - three to be exact.

What happened in the 26 years between the 14th and 15th Amendments being passed and Plessy v Ferguson? Great question, glad you asked. Over 2,000 Black men were elected to local, state, and federal offices. Two Black Senators, Hiram Rhodes Revels and Blanche K Bruce, are sent to DC from Mississippi. After Bruce’s term ends in 1881, there won’t be another Black Senator until 1967. 86 years later. 86 fucking years.

In 1870 and 1871, the Enforcement Acts came down. The Ku Klux Klan members are tried in federal court. The KKK fell apart after that, but the people who were in it, said fuck it, let’s make something worse. The Red Shirts, The White League, The Knights of the White Camelia enter into the political sphere. Massacres like the Colfax Massacre in Louisiana start.

While the Black Codes were outlawed, new successors took their place. Poll taxes, literacy tests, grandfather clauses and more were entered into states to create segregation. Extrajudicial murders in the form of lynchings were already on the rise, but the Supreme Court’s next move open the doors for racial violence to escalate. This is the beginning of the time period some historians call the Nadir of Racial Violence. It will extend into the 20th century.

Cruikshank hit the Supreme Court in 1876 as a direct reaction to the Colfax Massacre. The Court began its gutting of the 14th Amendment here, namely saying that the 14th Amendment only applies to STATE actions, not private citizens or organizations. Signifying to The Red Shirts, to The White League, to The Knights of the White Camelia that private violence was A-OKAY. Because the states would have to go after them, which they wouldn’t - the federal government could not. So the move from the 1870 Enforcement Acts, gone. In 1883, The Civil Rights Cases, all five of them, went directly after the Civil Rights Act of 1875. These cases removed FEDERAL protection from discrimination. Again, pushed it back to the states.

The Supreme Court stabbed the 14th Amendment twice before 1896 - not unlike the three times it took to gut the VRA entirely.

Boom 1896. Plessy v Ferguson.

Authoritarianism is the law of the land. Legal discrimination. Separate but equal. From the highest court in the land. Justice John Harlan would be the lone dissenter in 1883, 1896, but he wasn’t a part of the court in 1876 for Cruikshank.

Why am I outlining this for you? Because I need you to understand it’s the same fucking playbook. Chief Justice John Roberts has been open about his disdain for the Voting Rights Act for decades.

As early as 1981-1982, Chief Justice John Roberts has been talking about Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. It came up during his confirmation hearing in 2005. 25 memos written to oppose Congress’s attempts to strengthen section 2 of the VRA. He led Reagan’s opposition, and Congress won in 1982. But he’s patient. He won in 2026. 44 years later. Using the same arguments he and a bipartisan group of attorneys laid out in 1982.

Behind the scenes, for decades as well, the Heritage Foundation has been working towards this goal. Founded in 1973, in my opinion, as a direct reaction to the Civil Rights Movement, this has been their goal. As early as 1980, Paul Weyrich, one of the founders said this:

“I don’t want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of the people. They never have been from the beginning of our country, and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.”

While The Heritage Foundation founder graciously admitted this, all of their documents until more recently focused on true conservative values, like small government, reducing the regulatory state, while keeping a massive military. They utilized the Powell Memo as an assault plan to go after the media, the kids on college campuses, and weaponize businesses.

I’ve written and videoed extensively on both The Heritage Foundation and the Powell Memo over on my YouTube channel so I won’t spend as much time on it here.

But what you MUST know, is that the goal has been to rip every protection away. Protection for voters, for consumers, for the American people, the environment, and more. Our regulations in the government, they save lives. They save us money too, but they cost businesses money. Our consumer protections allow consumers to build wealth, to win against the big guys, to reduce monopolies (which lead to oligarchies). Our voting rights give us a voice in who is elected, and protecting systemically disenfranchised groups could not be MORE important than right now.

If you’re looking for a comparison for the Klan morphing into the Red Shirts, The Knights of the White Camelia, and The White League - look to our police in the United States. They’ve been in an escalation period for over a decade. While they murder people on the street, in parking lots, in their own homes, we continue to give them more money. We fund them. We fund their “mistakes.” We allow this to go on.

So where do we go from here?

A new constitution is needed. Hands down, no questions asked. And it should be Project 2029 for the Progressives. Progressivism Populism is already beginning to wing out of the Democratic Party which is much needed to combat the beast that is MAGA - but it’s not enough to tell people to vote like their lives depend on it.

We need two things to survive and build a country that can stand the test of time:

1. A FUCKING PLAN

2. A reason for people to mobilize

The general consensus for the last three Presidential elections from the establishment Dems is that the house is on fire, and we had to vote like our lives depend on it. But there has been no plan. Nothing to explain why we need to vote. Here’s what we’ll do. We still do not have that today. Many Dems speak of impeachment, and that’s grand, but what’s next.

How do we rebalance the checks and balances?

How are we expanding the court?

How are we rebuilding SNAP?

Are Americans getting paid back for the tariffs?

What’re we doing with USAID and garnering our soft power back?

What about all of our fucking allies who don’t even want people to visit our country right now?

Are we dismantling ICE? There is no reform.

What’s our plan to end the practice of Gerrymandering?

Where the fuck are the state parties?

How are we reuniting families?

Where are we going and how do we rebuild. This is why I will continue to harp on the fact that RIGHT NOW, by 2029 we should retake 18 more state houses, take the presidency and call for a Constitutional Convention. And make meaningful lasting change that creates a country that can stand the test of time.

We should have done it in 1865, but we pussyfooted around. It’s time now.

We’ll loop back to it. Famous last words.

So this week, instead, I’d love to let you know who I am.

My name is Amy McDonald, consultant, podcaster, content creator, and writer. I need to find an easier way to say all of that. I graduated from the George Washington Elliott School of International Affairs. I am the youngest of four children, my parents are both liberal, and I attended my first protest at age 3. It was the AIDS Walk in New York City.

I learned to speak in Hoboken, but my parents moved us to Charlotte, North Carolina before the accent stuck permanently. I went to college in Washington DC and was in front of the White House the day Barack Obama won. The first time. And the day the United States killed Osama bin Laden.

I moved to New York City to work in fashion, then music, then campaigns before settling into a career in real estate at an early stage startup. After a decade in residential real estate, I moved into a more tech forward career, still selling in early stage startups. I worked in real estate, construction, and eventually AI surrounding those industries.

The pandemic started less than a month after my 30th birthday, and New York City was unlike any version of New York City I had ever seen. The stark contrast between the joy of being alive as the sun finally peaked out of winter clouds in May and June versus being the epicenter of the United States’s fight with COVID is something I’ll never forget.

At the beginning of 2024, I started posting on TikTok. And by the end of 2024, I took my first solo trip to Germany. That was the year that changed everything for me. Social media gave me my voice back. While I was raised by two rad rad folks who taught me to fight for what I believe in. Who, when I called a friend an “ignorant bitch,” over her reaction to the Jena Six in high school told me I should have called her an, “ignorant slut,” and proceeded to give me an entire SNL history class. While I knew exactly who I was as a teen, I spent my entire 20s trying to be someone else. Trying to fit in. Trying to talk the appropriate amount of shit. Trying to not be “too much,” or “too passionate,” or even “smile too much.”

Because of other events in my life, I turned to drugs. I spent over a decade doing as much cocaine as I could get my hands on. Among other drugs. I spent so long trying to be someone else that I didn’t remember who I was. I didn’t know how to be me, without feeling like a gaping wound.

So when I started posting, I started with a series, Shit I Didn’t Learn in History Class. I started relearning US History because of testimony I heard from formerly enslaved people on the American History Tellers Podcast about Reconstruction. And the rest is history.

I’m kidding. You’re getting so much more.

And posting on social media truly gave me the opportunity to find that voice again. The voice of a fearless 18 year old. And at the end of the year, I ended up taking my solo trip. Inspired by some of the amazing women I follow on social media, I took off. End of November, into December - I went from Frankfurt to Cologne to Berlin.

I lean type B as a friend, and usually have someone else planning a lot – which is a bit lame, I know. BUT I made really great plans and only forgot one thing. Which was the train ticket from Cologne to Berlin. On that train, a man sat next to me. We’ve been dating ever since.

I’ve made two videos on the internet about it, and I think that plus this paragraph is probably all I’ll ever say, because the internet is scary and y’all can be bitch ass mean about personal stuff.

Wilder than my own Before Sunrise plot, I came home and made moves to create my own new adventure. I put notice in at my job, I didn’t have the means to be doing this, but I did. And then I made a list of everything I wanted in my next job and out of my 10 bullet point list, this next startup hit eight of them.

EIGHT – I felt like I wasn’t giving myself a chance if I didn’t dive in and give it a try. I was let go within 90 days. My heart wasn’t in it. I knew I wanted to be making content, writing, creating, and interviewing folks. I didn’t know I was going to consult just yet, but it shouldn’t have been a surprise to me because I love what my former career has been and I have 18 hecking years doing it.

So that leads me to today. Where I am writing this on a plane, returning to the United States from Berlin. I’ll spend the majority of my time here working with candidates, seeing family, building more content programs, consulting, and most importantly, basking in the humidity, like the swamp rat I am.

In the last year, I’ve expanded my audience to over 100,000 followers across platforms. We mostly talk about history, and why it matters to who we are today. We’re spending more time talking about information that white Americans need to know, and I am debating to tour across the South to talk to white women about the upcoming elections, but I am not sure.

I’ve recorded 70 episodes of the podcast, which will be shifting gears here soon. Right now, The Foolish Optimist Podcast is specifically geared towards interviewing political candidates who have never held office before. But going forward, the hunt for the next generation of leaders will expand slightly. We’re looking to speak with organizers, community leaders, leaders in their respective industries, and of course, up and coming politicians.

I launched an official consulting company late last month, where I am creating sales organizations, unified messaging, and more for mission led startups, nonprofits, and grassroots campaigns.

And that’s how we got to where we are.

I could write for days about my own journey - but it’s pretty average, I think. So I’ll probably stick to history. I’m just inexplicably exhausted for the moment.

Looking forward to next week.

Ms Viola Ford Fletcher died at 111 years old. She was seven the night it began 105 years ago, and she was 105 years old when they officially added it to the state curriculum in Oklahoma. (They originally added it in 2002, but didn’t create a comprehensive curriculum around it until 2019). You can read about her story in her own words. It’s a quick read, but worth it - Don’t Let Them Bury My Story.

Rosewood, a city in Florida, is burnt down just two years after Tusla. It started with a lie. Fannie Taylor, a white woman in Sumner, a nearby town to Rosewood, was stepping out on her husband. She was sleeping with a white man who assaulted her. She lied and said it was a Black man who had escaped a chain gang. The Sheriff and lynch mob tortured and killed Black men before destroying the entire town. White men from all over the state participated because of news organizations.

In reading a book about Rosewood, Like Judgement Day, I learned that many Americans in the 90s thought that we shouldn’t give reparations to descendants of enslaved folks because it was legal at the time. It lit me up truly, because we know as early as 1788, big Tommy Jefferson admits that slavery was a terrible practice. So while legal, our Founding Fathers and our Funcles knew it was wrong.

That said, neither of these events happened during slavery. Both Rosewood and Greenwood happened during my Great-Grandmother’s life and my Grandfather’s life. I bring all of this up to introduce another big lie that is pervasive throughout white America and that is, “so much of this ‘history stuff’ was so so long ago.” The more I talk about history, the more I run into this.

“Well it was so long ago.” And this is from all manner of white folks. First of all it wasn’t. Our country is only 250 years old this year. So quite literally - NOTHING IS SO SO LONG AGO. The Civil War in my family is five generations away. My mother was eight when the Civil Rights Acts were passed. Ruby Bridges has an Instagram.

And second, there is a real irony here, because while I hear, it was so long ago from all manners of white folks; some of the group screaming that everything was so long ago – is the same group saying that if white kids learn about race too early in their life, they’ll be traumatized.

Mind you, they’re also the same group screaming about how star spangled awesome the United States is and always has been. If the US is as amazing as you say it is, how come we can’t talk about our history?

It’s contradictions like this that make me fully understand the thesis of Dr Lassiter’s book “How I know White People are Crazy and other stories.” Because the more I think about it, the more I feel like I am going insane.

Why is this a lie that’s proliferating? We know why. It’s already mentioned, it’s to create a sense that things that happened long long ago, do not need to be accounted for.

No one needs to be held accountable. But the truth is, we a) need to hold the government accountable and b) MUST be vigilant as the historical cycle regenerates. AND C) if the schools aren’t going to teach proper history, we have to.

We have to step in to remind people what happened through Jim Crow, that it was true authoritarianism and that the cycle is regenerating. The Supreme COurt effectively dismantled a part of the Voting Rights Act just a few weeks ago, but why did we need it in the first place? Because another Supreme Court effectively dismantled the 14th and 15th Amendments after Reconstruction. 1896. Just 26 years after they were ratified.

The benefit of this lie is very similar to every other lie we’ve told. If white America believes that everything was so long ago, it’s so easy to create a scapegoat out of non-white America. That’s the fucking ticket. That’s always the ticket.

You can find more of me on Youtube (where long form drops every week), at The Foolish Optimist, or on Instagram.

Read with me at Bookshop.org

It usually goes like this, well actually, not as many white folks in the south owned other people as you think. Statistically, it was only 1-2% and everyone else worked for these uber wealthy folks.

Now, this could be considered true, if you ONLY counted the individuals who owned them. But we know that’s not the whole story. And usually when we talk about history on the internet, especially social media in short form, it’s not the whole story.

So let’s get into it. Because we know and most historians will say this too - enslaving Black Americans wasn’t an individual thing, it was a family affair. How do we know this? Because women were allowed to own other people, when they couldn’t own anything else. Quite literally. There were exceptions to owning HUMANS FOR WHITE WOMEN.

An example is Martha Washington, who brought over 150 dowager enslaved people to her marriage with Mr George Washington. Her first husband passed away and she was able to keep this “property” aka people.

So owning other people was a family affair. Meaning, one name may have been on the property registrar, but they were passed down in wills, given as gifts, and of course, bought and sold. You can learn more about this by reading, They Were Her Property or Never Caught. (Books linked here, but also at the bottom of this writing).

The flip side to this is that, people think, the only way to benefit from the practice of slavery is owning enslaved people yourself.

So color me shocked, when I see this thread.

Many white Americans today think that they are absolved of any issues if they themselves didn’t own any slaves or any of their ancestors. And I have to tell you, that’s false.

Every single white American born (myself included) in the United States has benefited even to this day from the systems and structures that we live in. Because it’s a system made for us by us. And it’s the same fucking system as before the Civil War.

So when we talk about American history, we have to be honest, yes not every white person owned enslaved people and not every white person was a card carrying member of the Klan, but every. single. white. person. in. the. United. States. benefits. from. this. system.

To this day. AND ON THAT NOTE. I’d be remiss if I didn’t say that every single one of us white folks, comes out of the womb in the United States, and we are a bit racist. It’s the system we’re dropped into. A system with over 400 years of inertia at its back.

So we have to fight against what I like to call factory settings. If you’re old enough, you may remember the days when we bought a cell phone and right out of the box it had its own factory settings. These were the days before you logged into your apple account and everything updated to something very similar to what you had. You had to go into each of the settings and change exactly what you wanted.

It took time, effort, and repetition. And NOT UNLIKE our phones’ factory settings, we white Americans have our own that come from generations before us. And even if we’re raised in the most progressive way possible, from time to time we fall back on them.

So what do we do? Right now, if you’re a white person prepping for an anti-racist journey. Step one, diversify your life. You can start with your FYP on social media. Follow and seek out Black American scholars and thought leaders, Indigenous leaders and creators, Latina/Latino folks, and more. Ideally find spaces to meet people IRL as well. Try out new spaces where you’ll have real world interactions and make new friends who don’t look exactly like you.

Begin to read books that push your understanding of American society and why we are the way that we are. My current favorite is How I know White People Are Crazy. Listen to podcasts hosted by anti-racist leaders.

Most importantly, start recognizing your triggers. What you do when you feel backed into a corner. How your nervous system reacts when you’re feeling attacked. And if you have been listening and learning it’s beyond time for you to start taking action.

It’s a fucking journey and it starts inside you. Then it spreads to your home. Then your community and you may be saying Amy do we have the time for this? We have to make the time for this.

If you want more on this topic, we’re yapping about it tomorrow over on Youtube. You can also support my work by following my podcast. Read with me here.

“Each person, withdrawn into himself, behaves as though he is a stranger to the destiny of all the others. His children and his good friends constitute for him the whole of the human species. As for his transactions with his fellow citizens, he may mix among them, but he sees them not; he touches them, but does not feel them; he exists only in himself and for himself alone.”

An outsider, in the United States, talking about our democracy. Finding the perfect words to prescribe the issue plaguing the United States in 2026.

But how did we get here? That’s what we’re talking about today, on American Lies. Welcome back friends. We’re discussing the Melting Pot: where the name came from, why it led us to loneliness epidemics, and how a savior was found for white America in the form of Donald Trump and the Make America Great Again movement.

Tocqueville wrote about the early identity crisis he saw in the United States, which was branded as individualism. He wrote about it over 60 years before the Melting Pot play arrived on the scene, entering that phrase into the lexicon and eventually history books.

The idealized version of The Melting Pot is something every American knows today - this idea that ANYONE can come to the United States, the land of milk and honey, to chase their American Dream. They come with seven dollars in their pocket (it’s always seven isn’t), and they make something of themselves. They become American and chase the American Dream.

In my opinion, after relearning US History for a while, is that the Melting Pot theory is a farce. For one thing, it wasn’t afforded to everyone. And Tocqueville saw that right now.

It’s a cutesy way to say, “Assimilate or Die.” European immigrants were asked one thing when they came to the United States, blend in. Become American.

And do that merely by:

• Changing your name

• Changing the way you dress

• Changing your language

• Changing your traditions (out least outwardly)

• And of course, be prepared to do it on your own

European immigrants adhered to this as much as possible. Often changing their name before leacing Ellis Island. Every history teacher I’ve ever had said it was to make their names easier to pronounce. I don’t know, it feels like a safety thing. While Black Americans make up the largest numbers of peoples lynched, Sicilian Americans were also lynched, German immigrants, Jewish immigrants, and more.

When you look at the data on the history of lynching, and you pay attention to who we would call “white” today, it’s people with ethnic names, with connections to the homeland, people who didn’t do the simple ask of assimilating. Reader, this is sarcasm. Remember the task is not simple.

Others took a different approach. If they couldn’t prove their whiteness via all the above changes, they joined in to do a violence against non-white Americans. Namely Black and Indigenous Americans. A few times throughout history, free Black Americans and white European immigrants teamed up to expel Indigenous people (I am thinking about Bacon’s Rebellion here specifically, but there are others).

So what happens when you demand that millions of immigrants forego their entire identity to fit into a social hierarchy that’s made up? They desperately crave connection, understanding, even identity.

And when a man who is way too tan shows up on the scene saying, I can give you identity, culture, community, and even a purpose with Make America Great Again – many folks are ready to accept that.

Tocqueville mentions this. Predicts it even. He calls it soft despotism. A gradual takeover of the government. Allowing the citizenry small wins, so they believe they’re free.

That lack of identity is something I see capitalized on in every instance fascism creeps in. Hannah Arendt writes about it, pointing out that fascists don’t go after the poor, but rather the disaffected. Those who feel like they deserve more, but belong nowhere. And somehow Tocqueville knew. A hundred years before Arendt was born. 150 years before Umberto Eco writes Eternal Fascism.

I see this disaffected class in MAGA, and don’t mistake my writing for too much sympathy for them. Please. I beg you. Because I know their belief systems gave them the go ahead to join forces with Donald Trump, a known racist, rapist, and all around bad person. And I know they want someone to hate, and when Trump says brown and Black Americans, they say bet.

But to get out of where we are today, we have to understand how we got here. And the disaffection of a large group of people combined with our country failing forced the already open door to facism wide open.

About 30% of this country wanted this, every time Donald Trump ran, somewhere around 30% of the adults in the room wanted exactly this. Maybe they didn’t “want” the racism, the families being ripped apart, whatever, but they excused it because of what MAGA gave them – so what do we do to get out of it, we rally the 70% of the adults in the room. We fight like hell to bring back community, to help each other get through this, and we hold these motherfuckers accountable.

This isn’t as thought out as I’d like it to be, but I’ll revisit it. I am having a very hard time financially, so if you’re up to support me, subscribe here on Substack for five dollars a month, or shoot me a venmo, or follow my podcast, or head over to Youtube. I’d love you forever (I already do).

From @_TreyJWS on threads but from her podcast.

Well, Ana. We’ve tried not talking about race and look where it’s gotten us. Welcome back to American Lies. And this one is for liberal white America - it’s racist to talk about race.

I’m going to argue just the opposite. Pretending like issues do not exist, is why we are in the position we are in today. And it is, in fact, more racist to not talk about race!

She goes on to say that socio economic factors are more important than race, but what I’ve learned in the last few years, relearning US History is that race is the core of our issues. Currently, we have a longer wealth disparity than any other time in history. More than the Gilded Age, more than the French Revolution, and I know that it is race that divides us (the non-billionaires) or we’d be revolting already.

Being that this is a series directed at white folks, I want to give you this thought experiment to understand the United States a bit more.

Lean in, we’re getting uncomfy and that’s okay, it’s where we grow.

Do you remember that family? That white family, maybe they lived on your street. Maybe they went to your church. They were PICTURE PERFECT. Two or three kids. All popular, all happy, mom and dad were married, decently big house. Cute as hell. Church on Sundays, volunteered, mom hosted events, dad had some big job. Kids got cars on their 16th birthdays. They excelled at everything.

Then you got to know the kids.

A little better at first, but you got to go over to their house.

Once you were in the house, the cracks started to show. Mom leaned on the wine too much. The sisters flinched around the brother. Everyone flinched when someone raised a hand or got too land. The dad - never around actually. This family was only good from afar, but upon closer inspection something was deeply wrong.

But nobody talked about it. Nobody talked about anything, really. The dinners you sat through as an interloper were cordial at best, but strained. And as you got to know the kids better, you saw everything. The pain, the heartbreak, the abuse. And the cover up. Because no one at church was to know. No one could know how they were treated, and frankly, it was impolite to discuss such things.

That to me, is the United States to a tee. We pretend like everything is just fine here (everyone else knows it at this point, it’s just white folks acquiescing to the illusion now). The illusion was well maintained through the majority of the 20th century because of a lack of camera phones and social media. But, presently, the more we learn about our own country, our history, we are forced to confront the abuse, the pain, the families ripped apart.

And not talking about it, has led us to where we are today. Not talking about race and racism doesn’t make it go away. We’ve shoved everything so far under the rug, our house is about to break.

Our country’s roots of white supremacy and genocide are so deep it’s ripping us apart. The only way out of it is through it. Having real conversations and making real strides to repair a fractured nation.

And when white folks argue that not everything in this country is about race, it’s denying over four hundred years of history. It’s not just a cop out, it’s harming the future of our country and the world.

The way out of this, is reparations and land back programs. In my estimation, it’s a new constitution based on inclusion. Because we’re looping. The Supreme Court in 2026, under Chief Justice John Roberts, a mere two weeks ago, put the final nail in the coffin of the Voting Rights Act. But why do we need the Voting Rights Act? Because we have the 14th and 15th Amendments. Those amendments enshrine voting rights for Black men and citizenship.

ANOTHER FUCKING SUPREME COURT GUTTED THE 14TH AND 15TH AMENDMENTS. Chief Justice Melville Fuller, in a 7-1 opinion, legitimized Jim Crow, ushering in seventy plus years of legal segregation with Plessy v Ferguson. Yes, you can argue it was only fifty because of the Brown V Board of Education ruling, but fuck out of here with that. George Wallace was preaching, “Segregation Now, Segregation Tomorrow, Segregation Forever,” in 1963. We know it truly ended in the 60s with the Civil Rights Acts, including the Voting Rights Act. Even so, many states, schools, and public places resisted integration. Ole Miss didn’t integrate their football team until 1971.

Justice John Marshall Harlan, a Kentuckian, wrote the dissent for Plessy V Ferguson and was vindicated decades later, while Justice David J. Brewer abstained.

Justice John Marshall Harlan’s lone dissent, would dub him the Great Dissenter. But what that 1896 ruling ushered in, wasn’t just “separate, but equal,” it was a two tiered citizenry. Less than thirty years after enfranchisement, Black Americans became second class citizens, and while Jim Crow is a decently flowery way to say it -it was authoritarianism. Plain and simple. If it was another country, we would call it just that. But it’s our own history, so we just simply call it a mistake. We know for a fact that at least fifty towns were destroyed during this authoritarian regime, but it’s likely well over 100.

The summer of 1919 alone, thirty-six cities saw portions or all of it razed to the ground. All because Black American GIs came home from World War I, and realized just how different they were treated in Europe. There were racial expulsions before the war as well, and famously afterwards, with Rosewood and Greenwood.

And we see this continue through the forties, fifties, and sixties, with the taking of Black neighborhoods while big highway lobbies in DC for our car centric life we live today. We see segregation enforced and CREATED in towns that didn’t have it with HUD and housing projects built all over this country.

We MUST confront the sins of our past. And that starts by talking about race. While reading one of my favorite and most heartwrenching books I’ve read so far in my journey to relearn US History, Like Judgement Day, by Mike D’Orso, I learned that a swath of American leaders believe (or believed at least in the 90s) that reparations weren’t needed because slavery was “legal at the time.”

What a fucking convenient argument, huh?

Legality and morality are not synonymous. And they haven’t been over the course of human history. We know this. And despite the legality of the both the practice of slavery, and the slave trade - Thomas Jefferson wrote this in 1788. A reply to Brissot de Warville:

“I am very sensible of the honour you propose to me of becoming a member of the society for the abolition of the slave trade. You know that nobody wishes more ardently to see an abolition not only of the trade but of the condition of slavery: and certainly nobody will be more willing to encounter every sacrifice for that object. But the influence and information of the friends to this proposition in France will be far above the need of my association. I am here as a public servant; and those whom I serve having never yet been able to give their voice against this practice, it is decent for me to avoid too public a demonstration of my wishes to see it abolished. Without serving the cause here, it might render me less able to serve it beyond the water. I trust you will be sensible of the prudence of those motives therefore which govern my conduct on this occasion, and be assured of my wishes for the success of your undertaking and the sentiments of esteem and respect with which I have the honour to be Sir your most obedt. humble servt.,

Th: Jefferson

So, please, for the love of GOD, spare me. Big TOMMY J, Thomas Jefferson wrote this and admitted that he knew it was bad, played the public servant card and then fucked off back to Monticello to sexually assault Sally Hemmings and live in a house that was basically a smart house without any tech. Just enslaved people making this magically appear.

We can pretend that race in this country doesn’t matter, but it won’t get us anywhere. The poor will continue to get fucked, while the uber wealthy, get wealthier off of our backs.

This has been the plan, the design from the beginning. Keep poor whites and poor Blacks separate as a means to control. Nothing in our United States History was an accident. And when we decide we’re not going to talk about race, WE FALL RIGHT INTO THEIR HANDS.

The minority that wants to keep minority rule. They NEED IT. If we continue to be at each other’s necks we won’t be at theirs.

If you’re a white person today and you’re wondering “What can I do to change this?” It starts inside of you. Understanding your own internal biases, and then you expand to your family, and your community.

If you’re a user of social media (and I know you are), diversify that For You Page today. Begin engaging with Black activists and Brown activists and organizers across the country. We don’t need to reinvent the wheel, but we must break this loop. And we’re the ones to do it.

If you’re desperate for more of me. Find me on YouTube, or over at The Foolish Optimist Podcast.

You may remember that Los Angeles was one of the first cities hit by the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. That was June of 2025. Ten months later, ICE hasn’t left. A mayoral election is on the horizon, FIFA and the Olympics are on their way, and communities are being terrorized throughout downtown LA — all the while, many Angelenos have no idea what’s happening.

The size of Los Angeles contributes to that. But the wealth inequality and the segregation — both by design — are what’s really keeping these communities apart. The city itself is built to look away.

When I started writing this, I thought it would be a break from American Lies. But here we are.

What’s happening on the ground

Raids began in June of 2025. Protests erupted. Stephen Miller dubbed the community response a violent insurrection. The mainstream media cycle moved on — to Chicago, to Minneapolis, to St. Paul — but ICE never left Los Angeles. California now has the second highest number of detainees in the country, surpassed only by Texas. And some of the private prisons holding those detainees are operating outside the bounds of state and local law.

California City is one of them. A CoreCivic facility that was never designed to hold the population it’s now holding, California City is maxed out. You may have heard of it because of Masuma Khan, a seventy-something year old mother who had lived in the United States for over twenty years. She was a victim of green card fraud. While detained at California City, they withheld her medication and nearly put her on a plane.

Masuma Khan is now the namesake of SB 995, a bill currently being argued on the floor in Sacramento. If passed, it would fine companies like CoreCivic and GEO Group $25,000 per day for every day a violation is reported. This matters because right now, at the federal level, there is virtually no oversight of these private prisons. State regulation isn’t the ceiling — it’s the floor we don’t even have yet.

Activists and organizers have been relentless. Protesting, helping families reunite, confronting politicians, showing up. But the city’s leadership has been largely silent. California City has been mentioned publicly by the governor exactly once.

They want us to look away. And the systems are designed to help us do exactly that.

This is not unprecedented. Say it with me.

I need you to remove the word unprecedented from your vocabulary when describing what is happening to immigrant communities right now. Like yesterday. Because the American government has banked on this specific lie so many goddamn times, that this is new, that this is exceptional, that this could never happen again.

It is not new. It is not exceptional. And it has happened before in Los Angeles.

Operation Wetback. 1954.

First, the name. Let’s sit with it for a moment. Wetback is a slur. It was a slur in 1954 when the United States government named a military operation after it. It is a slur right now in 2026. The decision to name it that was not accidental. It was a declaration of exactly how much humanity the people being targeted were afforded by their government.

Dwight Eisenhower was president. What followed was a militarized sweep to deport Mexican immigrants from the American Southwest. What is critical to understand is that legal immigration had been significant in the first half of the twentieth century and not unlike 2026, American citizens got swept up in the dragnet. Constitutional rights were violated. Human rights were violated. Families were separated. People who had every legal right to be in this country were put on buses and boats and dropped across the border.

Sound familiar? It should. It is the operational playbook being run today, seventy years later.

The lynching of the twentieth century (and present, but that’s a chat for another day).

Between 1877 and 1950, at least 4,000 Black Americans were lynched in the United States. These were not random acts of individual violence. They were community events. They were attended by families. They were photographed and turned into postcards. They were announced in local newspapers in advance. Local law enforcement didn’t stop them — local law enforcement often participated.

The federal government was asked repeatedly to pass anti-lynching legislation, which they didn’t, until 2022! The message was not subtle: certain lives were not going to be protected by the state. Certain communities were going to be terrorized into compliance and the rest of the country was going to look away. The mainstream of white America looked away. They had been told it wasn’t happening to them. They had been told they didn’t need to care.

Japanese Internment 1942.

One hundred and twenty thousand people. Two thirds of them American citizens. Removed from their homes, their businesses, their communities, and placed in internment camps by executive order following Pearl Harbor. The Supreme Court upheld it. The press largely supported it. And white Americans, by and large, let it happen — some of them moved into Japanese American homes and took over Japanese American businesses while their neighbors were behind barbed wire.

The government told white America this was about national security. It was about race. It was about property. It was about making sure certain people understood that their citizenship was conditional.

Judicial System

If you follow me across platforms, you also know this is why I am an advocate for felons being able to vote throughout their tenure in prison and afterwards. Because what the government is comfortable doing to one (group) of us, they are comfortable doing to all of us.

The lie underneath all of it

For white America, the lie has always been this: we don’t see it happening, it’s not happening to us, so why do we need to care? It won’t ever happen to us.

But what we are watching right now is a government that is practicing. Los Angeles is the testing ground. The income disparity, the segregation, the sheer size of the city — all of it makes Los Angeles the perfect place to run an operation and count on communities not being able to find each other. When we are kept separate from each other we are denied each other’s humanity. We only know who the other is through news organizations, through television, through movies — all of which have largely moved on.

Splitting the United States was by design. Los Angeles pioneered it. And what is being done to immigrant communities in downtown LA right now is banking on that separation holding.

This is always the design of the system. It has always expected white Americans not to go to bat for their brothers and sisters. And historically, we haven’t.

How can you help?

Los Angeles activists need our help. Many are facing arrests both by the Los Angeles Police Department and by the federal government. They need money, and they need media attention. Unbiased media attention. You can support their efforts here.

If you’re media or know anyone in traditional media, please send me a note at info.amymaccc@gmail.com

For the on the ground news follow:

1. Catie Laffoon

2. LATaco

3. Alexandria Augustine

4. Gabe Dunn

5. Eddy Mp4

We interviewed Catie and Alexandria over on The Foolish Optimist dropping May 18th, and will be speaking about this on YouTube later this week. Read with me TheBookShop.Org.

Thank you for being here.

The lie we’re examining today?

Racism is fixed in this country. It’s no more - we live in a post racial society.

TLDR: Our country is built on a system of exclusion and that is the baseline. The government and small subsegments of the population will always work to get back to that; however, the larger group of Americans could easily change things if we fought for it.

Welcome to American Lies, a series where I talk about the lies taught to white America to keep us separate from our Black and Indigenous brothers and sisters, while the upper echelon of wealthy elites make money off our backs, force us to work until we die, and maintain a sustained hatred of each other rather than working together to build a truly great America.

You may be saying, Amy, no sane person in 2026 thinks racism is gone, or fixed or whatever you think you’re saying.

I get it, but travel back in time with me. It’s November, 2008. I am 18 and it’s a chilly night in Washington DC, where I started college just a few months ago. I am in front of the White House, chanting, yes we can. I’ve smoked weed with other college kids, drank champagne with some grown ups, and Vietnam veterans gave me a puff of a cigar, the first and last puff I’ve ever had.

Naively, many white Americans, myself included, assumed that Barack Obama becoming president, in a sweeping historic win, meant we’d done it. 50 years after the Civil Rights Acts passed, a young, inspiring Black man and his adorable family were moving into the White House. Racism, gone.

Poooof. Post racial society, occupied by the United States of America. Kachow.

What a fucking joke. I am sure some folks thought the same too after the 1960s. I am sure some people assumed we’d made it once the Civil War ended.

The last eighteen years have been backlash, or recalibrating to our equilibrium since Barack Obama was elected. Not dissimilar to the reaction to Reconstruction, or after the Civil Rights movement. Our inability to remove systemic racism is why we are where we are today. We operate under the same structures as before the Civil War. In 2026.

If you’ve ever imbibed historical content, you’ll hear that the Confederates weren’t punished enough. But punishment, while much fucking needed, wouldn’t have solved this.

After the Civil War, the 13th Amendment was passed. Stating slavery was abolished, with the exception of those charged with a crime. Work as punishment was a prevalent idea then and now. Many of us understand that the exception to the abolition of slavery, was so that people who were already imprisoned with a “work sentence” could be held there. But I can’t help to think it was an exemption to bring the southern states homes.

Legally, the system stayed exactly the same, and the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments were more like bandaids.

What cropped up in slavery’s stead? The convict leasing system, the Black codes which turned into Jim Crow laws when the 14th amendment made the Black Codes illegal, enforced not just by lawmen of the state, but extrajudicial violence. First in the form of the Ku Klux Klan, followed shortly after with the Red Shirts, the Knights of the White Camelia, the White League, and more.

Black Americans were promised 40 acres and a mule, yet the Freedmen’s Bureau only lasted two years. But the plantation owners were given compensation for their loss of property. What the fuck do you mean? Loss of property. These families were ripped apart. Torn to shreds. Born and bred for enslavement over generations. The women and children were raped, constantly. Their bodies broken, the spirits harmed, their identities ripped away from them.

And the plantation owners were compensated for their loss of property.

I was listening to an amazing podcast called In Bed With the Right, sources are always linked at the bottom by the way. And in the Elizabeth Cady Stanton episode a story from Lucy Stone’s time at the Freedmen’s Bureau comes up. She’s teaching a man how to read and write, he is formerly enslaved and he is in his 80s. Stone asks, why? You’re in your twilight of life, why learn now. And he says that his son was sold away from him decades ago. If his son puts an advertisement out looking for him, he needs to be able to read and write back. This is one story, of MILLIONS. Millions.

And the plantation owners were compensated for their loss of property.

The Reconstruction Era, probably led many reformers and believers to think that the United States was on its way to a much more equitable society for all races, classes, creeds, and religions. But of course it wasn’t. Despite 2,000 Black men being elected to offices all over the United States, the reactions were swift. Two Black Senators were sent to Washington DC, from Mississippi.

The Ku Klux Klan, as one historian put it, failed because it couldn’t change the outcome of elections. Plus Ulysses S Grant, General of the Union Army, and then President shut them the fuck down with the Enforcement Acts.

But the reason reconstruction fails - beyond northern white racism or apathy, beyond not punishing Confederates, is because we never changed the systems in place. We still live under the pre-Civil War structure for the most part.

Oh, but Amy we’ve come so far – can’t you see it??

I can see the strides we’ve made, but I ask you, if in 2026, it’s so easy to repeal the strides we’ve made, have we even actually changed?

For over 160 years, we have been putting bandaids on femoral artery bullet wounds. Which as Americans, we all know what those look like and bandaids cannot do shit against it.

Let me walk you through it. The 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments are ratified, but are immediately undermined at the state level. The federal government turns a blind eye. The northerners who benefited from slavery (in capital or otherwise) are happy to see the Southern States get back on their feet.

The Enforcement Acts of 1870-1871 ripped the Klan apart, but put no structure in place to stop the Red Shirts from overturning an election in Wilmington NC, the only coup ever perpetrated on US soil. Nor did it stop the Colfax Massacre from happening in 1873, in Louisiana. There were no structures to stop lynchings. The anti-lynching law was passed in 2022. Twenty fucking twenty two. And it’s a law, it can be repealed. Anti-lynching must be put into our Constitution.

What comes next? States systematically undermining the rule of law. Refusing to allow Black men to vote demanding segregation and the highest law in the fucking land just 31 year after the end of the Civil War says “Seperate but Equal” no problem here. The transition to Jim Crow laws is what we know modern fascism is based on.

Plessy vs. Ferguson is 1896. Thirty years. Thirty years after the Civil War ends. Thirty years is all it took to systemically segregate people based on race, legally, and societally. Because we didn’t fucking change the structure of our country.

A big labor movement is created, but the big lie (episode one), persists. Jay Gould, a famous robber baron, states that he could hire one half of the working class to kill the other half. Many laborers and unions are segregated. The Industrial Workers of the World emerged, heralding anti-racist beliefs, fighting side by side with Black Americans, Immigrants, Women, and any other worker. Its destruction was systemic and by design. Back to the baseline of racism, segregation. And it was done by the government with the Espionage Act of 1917. Systemically draining the IWW’s financial power while trying over 100 of its top brass. Culminating with the Palmer Raids, which was not only Hoover’s origin story, but also a mop up job.

Now, in the backdrop of these incidents, the federal government is transforming. Federal income tax has been created, the administrative state is growing, and it will explode with the Great Depression and the New Deal. We didn’t have any version of the military that we see today. By the Palmer Raids we are between the World Wars.

Famously, after World War I, the United States hit its nadir of racial violence. With the Red Summer of 1919, both red for blood of Black Americans spilled at the hands of white Americans in thirty some cities, but also because it was amidst a red scare. Greenwood, the burning of Black Wall Street is next, in 1921. And Rosewood in Florida in 1923.

Categorically, the press in every incident is used as a tool to lie. To incite violence, to further separate the people of the United States.

The Great Depression adds to the regulatory arm of the United States federal government. Every regulation created, SAVES LIVES. That’s the point. There is a reason why a nation of over 330 million people needs the FDA, the SEC, the Fed, the National Labor Relations Board, and later, the EPA, OSHA, and so much more.

Between WWII and the 60s, I need you to understand that segregation was manufactured by the government. By the FUCKING GOVERNMENT in places that didn’t have it with Housing and Urban Development programs. The Color of Law explains this in a way that will make any person with a soul vomit.

Throughout the 60s and 70s more rights were awarded to groups of people. Including, the Civil Rights Acts, the Fair Housing Act, the Voting Rights Act. Roe V Wade becomes the law of the land (or so they say), the fight for LGBTQ+ rights begins, the American Indian Movement, the Anti-War Movement, the Black Panthers, and so so so many more.

Fred Hampton’s murder by the state is another such moment where leadership brought together Black, white, Puerto Rican, Indigenous, and many more Americans, and he was killed for it – by the Chicago Police Department in cahoots with the FBI is yet another example of what happens to leaders by the people in power who benefit from us being divided.

The reaction, not unlike the end of Reconstruction, is fucking swift. The Heritage Foundation was founded in 1973, just two years after the Powell Memo was written and one year after it was leaked. The Moral Majority was founded in 1977. Less than a decade after the last Civil Rights Act was passed.

Today in 2026, the President and his administration are gutting the regulatory programs. His Supreme Court - and yes it is his, overturned Roe v Wade. The Save Act while being pushed to the side continuously comes up to threaten voter rights and create the largest voter disenfranchisement since Jim Crow. Fucking USDA is selling our farming and food data to Palantir. There is a hostile movement to repeal the 19th Amendment.

I cannot tell you what I expected to discover when I decided to relearn US history. I didn’t know what I didn’t know, but we cannot fix the country we live in without diving into the foundational lies. And when we white folks pretend like the racism isn’t constantly baked into our society, isn’t structurally found at every turn, we’re doing a disservice to every person in this country.

Ourselves included. Because the exclusion built into our system is both racist and classist, both racist and misogynistic.

We can’t outrun the racism baked into our country’s founding, and we haven’t even really tried. We’ve put bandaid over bandaid over bandaid, but the country was born out of genocide, our government has never apologized nor given, US, THE PEOPLE, an opportunity to vote on how to rectify relations with the indigenous people on Turtle Island. We have not investigated every broken treaty.

The structures were based in minority rule, exclusion. There is no way to bandaid that. Our constitution is over 200 years old, and we’ve spent the last 160 trying to fix it, and some of us naively believed we had. We haven’t and cannot we need something new.

Because we were designed in exclusion, racism is where our government leads us. Division on purpose so we forget our power (because it’s written into every structure we have).

You can find more of me on Youtube (where long form drops every week), at The Foolish Optimist, or on Instagram. Read along with my sources.

Last week was a tough week to be a woman in this world - I mean, it’s always a tough week. But last week was very rapey and took a turn for the murderous.

Two members of the House of Representative resigned last week amidst rape and sexual misconduct allegations. Eric Swalwell, the Democratic frontrunner for the California gubernatorial race, and Tony Gonzales, a Republican out of Texas who already had made the news because his staffer took her own life, via self immolation. By Wednesday, CNN dropped the story that a website with over 62 million hits per month, was dubbed an online rape academy by French lawmaker (who was drugged by her own colleague). A place where men can ask questions about how to drug and rape their own partners, where they can buy drugs to rape them.

Mind you, this is all while Sam Altman is bringing up a case against his own sister who is claiming he raped her until he was 21 years old. And by Thursday we have a highly publicized murder suicide case – where the former Lt Governor of Virginia murdered his own wife and then took his own life and left the bodies for the CHILDREN TO FIND.

Also, the Epstein Files.

I’m not surprised at the men defending the men or even the women defending the men at this point. And none of that is what this essay is about, I just need you to know the events leading up to white women across the United States demanding the patriarchy be torched without even so much as mentioning our inextricably linked system of white supremacy.

Welcome to American Lies: a series that will likely become my life’s work where we talk about the lies told to white Americans, to keep us separate from our brothers and sisters of different races in an effort to control all of us and keep us from an equitable society.

Every time I bring up white supremacy, the refrain from white women is that it must be the patriarchy. Because we, white women, we’ve truly done – nothing. Which is historically so inaccurate, but absolves us, sort of. And I know that’s why we white women do it, despite being a load bearing demographic for both the patriarchy and the system of white supremacy, white women have been trained to play the victim so much over the last four hundred years in the United States, it couldn’t have possibly had anything to do with ✨US ✨.

That’s our American lie this week: white women are the victims of the patriarchy, and therefore couldn’t have been a part of the problem of white supremacy because they were/still are victims themselves.

But we, women, we’re complex creatures, and we, white women specifically, our place in history and the present day is also complex. It’s nuanced, just like us, just like our brains, and just like our bodies. Complications abound. It’s why I become beyond infuriated when white women play the victim card. We may be victims in the system of patriarchy, but we are oppressors in the system of white supremacy and they linked BY DESIGN.

I NEED YOU TO READ A BOOK. Specifically, They Were her Property by Stefanie E Jones-Rogers, or Selling Hate, Marketing the Klan, by Dale Laackman.

So let’s start with our own history - as we remember from last week, part of this series’ goal is to understand our own history as white Americans so we can break free from it.

Historically, white women were part of the owned group. The United States was built for rich white men, by rich white men, and white women fit into the “property of class.” We were owned too. BUT it wasn’t the same because white women while still being women, were, say it with me: WHITE.

Because of white women’s precarious position in the white man’s world, we’re both victim and oppressor, predator and prey. Our tears leveled entire towns. False accusations led to entire summers of white violence on Black cities, towns, people, and more. And we were fashioned into a tool. A fucking battering ram, if you will. Used by men, and often levied by women themselves to ruin lives.

Oh you may be saying, but, Amy, that was so long ago.

Emmitt Till could easily still be alive today, if it weren’t for Carolyn Bryant. May she rot in fucking hell.

The term “Karening” was created because white women were policing Black folks having fun. In the era of camera phones no less, also known as present day. The Central Park birdwatching incident, where Christian Cooper was policed by a white woman, Amy Cooper - big disgrace to my name - happened in twenty fucking twenty (he won an Emmy and has continued to crush life despite that bitch).

“Karening” is the oldest tool in the white supremacy toolbox - the crying white woman begging for the authority’s help because of scary non-white, historically Black, men or boys are coming to harm her! In recent years, “Karening” has expanded to all non-white folks.

I mean, fuck dude, the very first trend I saw on TikTok was white women crying morphing into a Cheshire cat smile and it was terrifying. We, white women, can be incensed over the patriarchy and we SHOULD BE. Our anger is righteous, but we’re in a unique position in this fake social hierarchy born out of both white supremacy and the patriarchy and while we instinctually want to play the victim, because of generations of conditioning and being bred for that we also play the role of the oppressor. This unique position gives us power and I think it’s time we step into it.

We have power, we know we do, we wield it as we wish, though rather than as a unified. Can you imagine, if white women actually worked together? We’ve been conditioned to compete with each other, rather than working together because if we always worked together we’d be a force of fucking nature.

We’ve been conditioned to stump for the white man. To find the strong white man wherever we can and align ourselves with them. Plenty of white women continue this tradition today. We know this based on voting records. Despite the fact that Donald J Trump and his ilk consistently create laws against women, still over half of the white women who showed up in 2024 still voted for him.

That said, one third of Americans of voting age, did not show up in 2024. Which means, of the two thirds who showed up, one half of white women voted for Trump. They skewed uneducated. Which means for white women today, we can take over this demographic. We, educated white women who voted for Kamala, why the fuck not.

Let’s work together with other marginalized groups to tear down both systems. Why can’t we? We have the numbers right? We have the educated young women coming up. That’s the future. We MUST break our own generational curses and that is fucking HARD.

It’s so hard to break away from the whiteness focused, paternalistic culture, we were raised in, for, and used as a tool of. But it is doable, change is possible, it has to start with us individually, then we can move it into our communities, and finally into the country and world at large. Does it take time? Yes, but it’s worth it.

Oh and by the way - BLACK WOMEN, INDIGENOUS WOMEN, BROWN WOMEN have been screaming this for decades. If you’re coming out of this essay thinking “woah, what a great idea, I never thought of it that way,” you’re falling prey to both systems we’ve been talking about today.

So check your ego, go follow amazing Black, Indigenous, immigrant women on instagram, tiktok, youtube, or wherever you imbibe content. Start a women’s group in your neighborhood, have the hard conversations, remind women how much power we have everywhere and at every moment in time. And let’s immediately start stripping the power away from both systems of patriarchy and white supremacy at once.

You can find more of me on Youtube (where I’ll be launching a new series on Friday - called American Lies), at The Foolish Optimist, or on Instagram. Books for this series are here.

Why? Because I am a white American - descended from English, Irish, Scottish, and Welsh folks over three hundred some years in this country. I’ve looked at myself as a case study because I know where I lack. Yet, I still have many a blindspot. So I invite you to point them out.

Welcome to American Lies. Born out of James Baldwins’ writings in “The Fire Next Time,” Tammy Triolo’s “The Empathy Gap: It’s Black and White”, and “How I Know White People Are Crazy and other Stories” by Dr Jonathan Mathias Lassiter, and of course, as mentioned, my own life.

“They [White Americans] are, in effect, still trapped in a history which they do not understand; and until they understand it, they cannot be released from it.”

James Baldwin wrote that, in The Fire Next Time. And I often meditate around this quote, but do not talk about the entire quote and today we’re going to talk about the entire thing. The rest is, “They have had to believe for many years and for innumerable reasons that black men are inferior to white men. Many of them, indeed, know better, but as you will discover, people find it very difficult to act on what they know. To act is to be committed, and to be committed is to be in danger. In this case, the danger, in the minds of most white Americans, is the loss of their identity.”

This is our first American Lie - the big lie. The origin story that has been passed down so many times and in so many ways, that white America doesn’t recognize it as anything other than just life.

One of the foundational lies of the United States was used to uphold a hierarchy created by plantation owners. The same lie used later by Lyndon Baines Johnson: “If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.” And of course held up with Ronald Reagan’s lie of the Welfare Queen.

But in the earliest days of colonisation in the United States, this was a lie born out of necessity, and designed to keep new colonisers and enslavement people separate.

African men, women, and children were brought to the shores of the Americas in 1619, surges of white European colonisers came in waves later. Was it because plantation owners wanted to share the wealth? Or was it because they were outnumbered? By men who were stronger than them, again, by design.

The call was made. Come to the new world! The land of milk and honey. You can make money here. Though again, I must stress, the plan wasn’t to bring all of these second sons up to the upper echelon. They just needed the safety in numbers.

So it began, the lie. In my mind, it went something like this:

New European to Americas, “Hi, good sir, plantation owner, my name is John and I see you have Black men doing a job I would like to. I am skilled, and could get it done quicker.”

Plantation owner, “Ah! Young John, hello, welcome to the new world. I have to tell you here, things are different. You’re a fine, upstanding young white man. I wouldn’t deign to give you the job that Black man is doing for free. That’s not a job in the new world for a fine man like yourself.”

Or maybe they put it more bluntly, but either way. The lie began. If Europeans had not desperately wanted into the club that was defined by new money. Had they banded together with men who didn’t look like them, and said, wait a minute, we want to have everyone compete for this job, and be paid the same wage. And a few tried.

In 1676, Nathaniel Bacon led a rebellion that was multiracial. Born in England, he absconded to the United States after a seemingly grey marriage that caused trouble in his homeland. He was educated at the University of Cambridge, well-traveled, and moved to Virginia colony in 1671. Bacon’s rebellion started in an effort to drive indigenous people out. Which cannot be discounted. While led by an Englishman, noble by birth, it included a multiracial group of people - men like Bacon himself, indentured servants, and Africans.

It led to Whiteness being legally defined in Virginia. Because it legitimately terrified this brand of new world aristocracy. Not a group led by birth, but by land ownership, and people ownership. This is the moment where whiteness was created - giving white indentured servants small but mighty legal protections that made them feel better about their place in the new world’s society, while pointedly explaining who was white and who was not. As a reaction to this rebellion, again born out of Bacon’s hatred for the indigenous, we see the first miscegenation laws. We see the hereditary nature of slavery put into law. We see an expansion of the slave codes.

Now, as a reader, you may be thinking, Amy, I couldn’t possibly be held responsible for what happened in the 1600s in Virginia. But this isn’t a lie that cannot be maintained without nurturing and nurturing it we have. For years to come, all the way up to the 20th and 21st centuries. Is it more covert? Yes. Is it easier to manipulate the public today? I believe so. We’ve already mentioned two Presidents reinforcing this lie in the last sixty years.

So let’s take a walk down history lane and look at some examples.

Some of the ways this lie is maintained is legally. Like redlining and the forced segregation of cities even where there was none. You can learn more about this, in the Color of the Law - one of the best books I read last year. This is a deliberate use of public housing to maintain the value of white property. If you study history, you also know that white veterans and Black veterans were not treated the same after World War II, but there were other courses of Affirmative Action exclusively for white Americans during this time as well.

The use of slavery as a weapon is another example. This is huge, of course, because we know that the majority of White Americans didn’t own slaves; however, every white American benefited from slavery and they all went to bat for it. Both in the Civil War and afterwards. Why did white Americans fight for a system that was harming them? Because we were over two hundred years into this lie. Again, using small legal loopholes to prove to white Americans they were different was key here.

The framing of the crack epidemic vs the opioid epidemic in my opinion is pretty self explanatory.

So, why did I tell the James Baldwin quote at the beginning because I need you to understand that for many white Americans, our identity is wrapped up in being “not them.” And many of us have no idea why - this lie has been perpetuated, nurtured, and continued for hundreds of years to the point that it’s enmeshed in our society despite being a lie. It’s impossible to escape it without pushing back hard at every turn.

We, white America, truly have no idea who we are. We’ll explore this more throughout this series, but to commit to changing this we’ll be on a journey of self-discovery and learning. With learning, comes discomfort, because we admit we don’t know everything.

I know we’re not a monolith, but I also know that not one single white person in America missed being hit by the system of white supremacy. Read that again. We’re operating in a system that we are born into, bred into, and raised in. A system with 400 plus years of inertia.

Maybe this is the idealist in me, but I know we can change this system to create something where we are all safe, loved, and can thrive. First, we have to understand who we are and why we are the way that we are.

Name the problem, change the problem.

Thanks for being here. If you want more on this topic, I’ll be posting long form to Youtube on Friday. And I have linked all of the books for you to read both in the writing and here. Join me on this journey.

You can find more of me on Youtube (where you’ll find the longform video of American Lies), at The Foolish Optimist, or on Instagram.

I host a podcast called The Foolish Optimist. It’s from a larger quote from Franklin Roosevelt’s first inaugural address. He says something like, only a foolish optimist would disregard the present situation we’re in.

It’s the Great Depression. One in four Americans are out of work. People are selling their children, taking their own lives, losing their homes, and the United States is a bleak place. Now Franklin Roosevelt is by no means perfect. He led the way in putting Japanese Americans in internment camps. He was racist beyond belief and under his leadership HUD created segregation where there was none. I am under no allusions of that, but he did something that most Americans are dreaming of right now. He found a way to create the American dream, specifically for the white middle class.

But I think it’s high time we hunt for someone to do the same for the next fifty years of the United States. So I am doing just that. I am desperate for a leader that will change the course of our country. Who will lead the way in rooting out discrimination in this system we have and that’s a generational task. That will take time, but luckily for us, midterms are right around the corner and we have leaders ready, willing, and able to take on that task.

This week on The Foolish Optimist, we’re talking to two people. Kelly Kicksies of the Civic Roadshow and Mike DeCillis running in New York’s 11th Congressional District.

The podcast focuses on both candidates and people behind the candidates.

I’ve found a handful of candidates that I truly believe are the real deal. Mike DeCillis fits that bill. As does Melissa Bird in Oregon. Salaam Bhatti in Virginia. Lexy Doherty in Georgia. Candice Duvielh in Alabama. Robert People in Florida. Jeromie Whalen in Massachusetts. Ashley Bell in North Carolina. Just to name a few.

I’m on the hunt for unscrupulous leaders, who want serious change. We are going into their time in Congress as a job with a set amount of time. People who want to get in and get out and get on with life.

Today our episode with Mike DeCillis drops. Next week is Salaam Bhatti. The following is Heidi Schmidt, and then Vance Bostic.

I hope you’ll take some time to listen and to get involved.

You can find more of me on Youtube (where I’ll be launching a new series on Friday - called American Lies), at The Foolish Optimist, or on Instagram.