Papers Please!

manumission document for a former slave

When Donald Trump hyped the birther lie regarding President Obama and Obama acquiesced that was a dark, dark day. That harkened back to a time when any white person could challenge any Black person to prove they were in fact a “free person of color” and not a slave. Because to be Black in 19th century America and before to be Black was synonymous with being a slave. Slavery was forever. Passed down from generation to generation through the mother. That’s why all those Negroes who were sired by white men as the result of forced intercourse with Black women were “slaves” and not “free people of color.”

The proper response from Obama should have been “You shoe me yours, and I’ll show you mine.” Or better yet “Kiss my ass!”

Being an American has nothing whatsoever with how you look, whether you worship a single or multiple deities or none at all. Being an American has nothing to do with who you love or whether or not you chose as a female of the species to give birth to a child. Being an American is really an idea, a set of principles of freedom & equality to aspire to and values to hold. By those standards Donald Trump and his MAGA supporter have little claim to being “real Americans.”

So why is ICE just targeting non-white folks. Does their melanin automatically signify undocumented immigrant? If they plan to take you to jail or deport you for just trying to feed you family and be an upstanding member of the community (which most immigrants are) the proper response is, “Kiss my ass!” Prove that I’m not an American. Prove that I don’t belong here.

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Pass laws in South Africa were a key component of the apartheid system, designed to control the movement of nonwhite populations and enforce racial segregation until their abolition in 1986.

Historical Context

Pass laws originated in the 18th century during the colonial period, initially applied to slaves who were required to carry "permission" documents to control their movements. Over time, these laws evolved to restrict the movement of Black South Africans, Coloureds, and Indians, particularly during the apartheid era, which began in 1948.

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As I’ve said previously in these pages and elsewhere most white folks today are descended from “Johnny-come-latelies” who inherited a country built on the backs of human suffering and free labor. So, when Donal Trump and MAGA bitch ‘n moan about The Smithsonian being woke, they are simply trying to hide from the truth.

Imagine for a moment that you’re taking your children to the park to play. And in the center of the beautiful greenery all around sits a statue to Adolf. The inscription reads:

He tried to exterminate millions of human beings and was supported by his countrymen and women who gave him total allegiance. They put their humanity in their pocket, their empathy and compassion in a drawer, rationalizing his heinous actions that were a crime against humanity because he made the trains run on time.

What do you say to your children when they ask you to explain why this statue is here in the public square for all to see. Why build a monument to this heinous individual? Are the people who placed it there trying to send a message?

You can put all of the traitors to the cause of freedom who rebelled and made war on their fellow Americans in The Civil War to maintain a system of bondage and forced labor that like Adolf’s actions were a crime against humanity in that same category. Why do these monuments exist in the public square? Is somebody trying to send a message?

“The past isn’t dead; it isn’t even past. - William Faulkner

“He who controls the past controls the future.” -George Orwell

Thus, Donald Trump’s and MAGA’s war on the Smithsonian and his attempt to whitewash history.

Faulkner reminds us that history refracts through every facet of today’s world. Like white light through a prism, past injustices—slavery, Jim Crow, redlining—split systemic advantage into visible inequalities we still navigate. Orwell warns that whoever writes the narrative wields the power to shape tomorrow. When we confront systemic racism, we must both expose the prism and reclaim the story of how we got here.

From Individual Virtue to Collective Accountability

We often hear “I’m not racist” or “only 2% owned slaves” as defenses. These responses personalize structural harm, ignoring how entire communities’ benefit. If we treat the system as external, we absolve ourselves of responsibility for current disparities in wealth, education, and justice.

A deeper dive for PAID SUBSCRIBERS

The invocation of Faulkner and Orwell opens a rich vein of literary works that interrogate history, memory, and systemic control. A curated constellation of texts that resonate with those themes can be found below.