As the more civic-minded readers may recall, someone once said, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

All men, as in mankind, as in all men and women, regardless of race, color or creed.  And not just American citizens either, but also refugees, immigrants, the indigenous and the alien.  It is self-evident that they are all equal and all have unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  

Pro-nationalists, white supremacists, and MAGA supporters (MAGgots?) often act as if these rights apply only to them and those like them. But this nation was founded on the assumption that the rights apply to all people regardless of skin color or religion, of nationality or immigration status.  Everyone.  

White supremacist ideology, which denies these rights for non-whites and non-natives, originally evolved in the Americas to justify the barbaric but enormously profitable practice of slavery.  It became easier to buy and sell enslaved African and African-American people like cattle when the white settlers stopped thinking of them as human, when they were converted to mere property in the white imagination.   Their value and worth could then be calculated according to age, sex and productivity.  It could be believed that they were unable to feel pain and that they could be separated from their families.   

When one's profits depended on slavery, it was easy, if not necessary, to rationalize a belief in the slave's biological inferiority.  It allowed the slave owners to reconcile the inherent contradiction of the dehumanizing institution of slavery with the declaration of equal rights promised in the country’s founding documents.  It allowed slave-owners like Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and George Washington to write a document like the Declaration of Independence without understanding their own inconsistencies.

America's economic success was largely made possible by the forced labor provided by slavery. The labor of enslaved people reaped the cotton that fed the New England textile mills that launched the Industrial Revolution and built a sprawling rail network, propelling the country’s enormous economic growth in the nineteenth century. Slavery helped fuel the growth of Wall Street, the insurance industry, and shipping fortunes. The wealth created by slavery attracted millions of European immigrants to the nation’s shores well into the 1920s. 

When slavery was outlawed, society built systems that would keep African Americans in as close a condition to slavery as possible. White supremacist ideology rationalized lynchings, convict leasing, Jim Crow segregation, federal housing loan discrimination, the destruction of black neighborhoods for “urban renewal,” environmental injustice, wealth inequality, voter disenfranchisement, mass incarceration, and police brutality.  

The illness of white supremacist ideology still infects the country, as evidenced by the racial violence, hate crimes and mass shootings we see today. It  created a reality in which the economic vitality of the country became entangled with predatory capitalism and racial subjugation.  Today, those racist systems and policies rooted in the institutions of slavery and white supremacy continue to marginalize communities of color and people of all ethnicities living in poverty.

This weekend, far-right pro-nationalists and white supremacists marched in Portland, Oregon and were met by anti-fascist, Antifa, counter-protesters.  It was a tense confrontation with the potential for explosive violence, which fortunately did not occur.  However, the leaders of the Proud Boys, which organized the far-right protests, have threatened to return to Portland every month.  But the so-called "president" of the United States, instead of forcibly denouncing the hurtful and destructive ideology of white supremacy and pro-nationalism, instead said he's considering classifying the counter-protesters, Antifa, as a terrorist organization.  While that's legally impossible (there are no laws on the books for classifying any domestic organization as "terrorist," only for identifying foreign terrorist organizations), by singling out the counter-protesters and not also denouncing groups like the Proud Boys, he clearly signals his sympathy with the white supremacist ideology.  

If this nation is to become united, for America to become great, we need to overcome the current rampant economic inequality.  As long as we continue to divide ourselves along racial and ethnic lines, as long as we scapegoat refugees and immigrants as the source of our problems, we will remain unequal and divided, and things will only get worse.

Don't make things worse.