My Ambivalence About The USA And Texas Is Real

Sometimes I wonder just how many of you white Americans not only say amen to what Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger B. Taney wrote about my people in the 1857 Dred Scott v Sandford decision but think on this date in the second decade of the 21st century we're still 3/5ths of a human being compared to you? TransGriot, July 4, 2013

The conservafools are going apoplectic because the kneeling protest of the flag and national anthem kicked off by 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick is now being replicated across the nation.

I've said in more than a few posts on this blog not only that some of my fellow Americans piss me off, my relationship with this country can be summed up in a line from the HBO movie The Tuskegee Airmen.


How do I feel about my country?  How does my country feel about me?

As a student of history, I know that the anti-Black hatred embedded in the American DNA is real and manifests itself at times in every fiber of this society.  I also know that as much as I love my birth state of Texas. and the United States, I have serious concerns about the state of race relations in the Lone Star State and this country.

I have overwhelming evidence gleaned from history and my five decades of lived experience that my state and my country don't love me with the same level of enthusiasm that I love them.

And my unapologetic Black trans status shows me that my state's Republican leaders in Governor Greg Abbott, Lt. Governor Dan Patrick, and Attorney General Ken Paxton hate me not only for my Blackness, but also because I'm transgender.

As I like to say when I get asked about it, love my birth state, hate the conservative GOP jerks that run it.

So yes, my ambivalence about this country and this state is real.  How can I be proud of a country and a state that gleefully tries to suppress my ability to vote via SCOTUS rulings and unjust laws and enslaved my ancestors for over two hundred years?

How can I be unfailingly proud of a state that is seriously considering, despite the overwhelming evidence from Indiana and North Carolina that targeting the TBLGQ community for discrimination is dangerous to your state's economic health, still are flapping their loud and wrong gums about wanting to pass and HB2 style bill here in the Lone Star State?

Miss me with that idiotic crap.

Also miss me with all the bigoted assumptions you carry about me and my people because I'm not 3/5ths of a person.  Neither is my humanity as a Black trans person up for discussion or debate or to be used to prop up support for your party's failed policies  

To borrow and paraphrase the words of the writer James Baldwin, it is because we love this country that I and other African-Americans loudly criticize her when she is on the wrong path to make America better.

It's your choice White America.  You can stop tripping about Colin Kaepernick, because he is the representation of what many African-Americans, myself included, have felt for decades about this country, and just because he gets a nice paycheck doesn't negate his 1st Amendment rights.

You can either listen to what we Black Americans have to say in a peaceful manner and take corrective action, or as usual attempt to ignore it, and then be shocked and dismayed when you hear the same message in the language of the unheard.