Get Somebody Else to Do It

Black people are worried about saving ourselves, not a country that never loved us

Let’s be perfectly clear on one thing: The Trump administration is testing the backbones of the American people even more than they’re testing the limits of presidential and judicial powers.

The unhinged orange megalomaniac is burning through unconstitutional executive orders faster than Don Jr. burns through an 8-ball of Bolivian marching powder on any given Tuesday afternoon. At the same time, Co-president Elon Musk and his squad of barely-legal DOGE incels are using their imaginary department (and underdeveloped prefrontal cortices) to take a hatchet to important government entities. They’ve essentially been granted free reign to gut vital programs and agencies like Social Security, Medicaid, SNAP, USAID, the Centers for Disease Control, the Department of Education, and the National Ocean and Atmospheric Association, all while giving us their—likely unwashed—asses to kiss.

Every Trump directive screams “Do something.”

Every wave of mass firings and every threat to life-saving benefits taunt “I bet you won’t.”

There is no diplomatic solution to the problem at hand, because there is no way to reason with unreasonable people. The U.S government in in the hands of power-hungry authoritarians and fascists, whatever semblance of democracy this country has is breathing its dying breaths, and nobody is coming to save the day. The courts can only hold the line for so long, and the administration has already ignored judge’s orders regarding deportation flights, signaling an impending constitutional crisis.

We are witnessing the dystopian turn of the “Greatest Country in the World” in real time. As I write this, several legal citizens and residents have been targeted for deportation or “detained” (kidnapped) for their pro-Palestinian activism, a direct assault on free speech.

Removing Trump from office has proven to be impossible, and the third attempt wouldn’t be a charm, considering his party of sycophants will follow their Fearless Leader into hell. The ever-impotent Democrats, on the other hand, still refuse to play dirty, even though that’s all the Republicans do. They’re too concerned with useless moral victories and the public appearance of decorum, and they’re still beholden to “rules” that the other team never gave a damn about.

Trump and Musk are just two of the hydra’s heads, and should they be cut off, four more would grow in their place. The entire beast must be slain, one way or another, and peace was never an option. Go ahead and build the guillotines and roll them onto the grounds of the Capitol Building. I support it.

As I said recently: There will be blood.

I have no doubt about that.

However, not a single drop should be voluntarily spilled from Black bodies, least of all from Black women, who were long ago designated as perpetual saviors. The descendants of those who built this country on their whip-scarred backs owe it exactly what it has given to them and to us: nothing. We are not obligated to come to America’s rescue, when it has never once come to ours. In these uncertain times, I will lean into community, I will do what I can to build coalitions at the ground and local levels, and I will take up arms to protect myself and my loved ones without hesitation. Yet, I have no fantasies surrounding my personal participation in a mass violent uprising against the current regime, because that is neither my responsibility or my ministry. Aside from that, society has made it very clear that the only acceptable rage has a white face.

The right to storm-the-gates accelerationism is reserved for rabid mobs of insurrectionists, who receive presidential pardons from the same man who stoked their collective temper tantrum into a deadly act of treason. The off-with-their-heads ethos is for hooded vigilantes who wouldn’t be received so well if they were less photogenic and likely wouldn’t have been taken in alive if they were a few shades darker.

Luigi did nothing wrong, by the way.

Saying that the United States needs to be fixed implies that it is broken. In reality, it’s functioning the only way in which a nation built on bloodshed, bondage and genocide could function. The current administration and political climate are the result of centuries of blind faith in capitalism, manifest destiny, American exceptionalism, and buying into the existential snipe hunt that is the American Dream.

AmeriKKKa doesn’t need to be fixed. Much like it’s police forces, which originated as slave patrols and increasingly act as militarized death squads, it can’t be fixed. No, the Empire needs to burn, and only then can something better be built upon the ruins. I don’t have the answers, but I know that much.

Either way, it’s not up to Black people to carry the gasoline or set the fire. Nah, we need to sit back for once, and bask in the warmth of the flames.