America’s Racial Divide: Power, Caste, and the Fight for Truth
The Rotten Core of America’s Racial Divide
America loves a good myth. We hear about the Founding Fathers as champions of freedom, the Constitution as a flawless blueprint for justice, and the American Dream as a promise that anyone can succeed if they just work hard enough. But beneath these polished narratives lies an undeniable truth: racism isn’t just an ugly chapter in America’s past—it’s the ink that wrote the whole story.
This isn’t just about history; it’s about now. The roots of oppression stretch from 1619, when the first enslaved Africans were brought to these shores, through Jim Crow, redlining, mass incarceration, and the continued systemic inequalities of today. And yet, conservative America keeps trying to break this history into disconnected pieces, cutting it into bite-sized, sanitized portions that make it easier to ignore.
They push the idea that slavery was “a long time ago,” that the Civil Rights Movement “fixed everything,” and that talking about race is “divisive.” But when you put the whole story together, it paints a clear picture: racial oppression in America is continuous, intentional, and deeply ingrained. And it affects all of us—Black, Brown, Queer, poor, disabled, and everyone forced to exist outside of the narrow box of white, cis, straight America.
The Cycle of Oppression
Only people who feel powerless try to strip power from others. Secure people don’t enslave, segregate, erase history, or pass laws banning Black books and Queer representation. Oppression is a cycle passed down through trauma. White supremacy isn’t just a system designed to control Black and Brown people—it’s a cage for white people too.
White America has never healed from the generational trauma of its own brutal history. Instead of reckoning with the horrors of slavery and segregation, many have inherited the unspoken guilt of their ancestors. Rather than facing it, they either ignore it or lash out, creating new forms of racial control—police brutality, voter suppression, economic exploitation—all in the name of “law and order.”
As Isabel Wilkerson writes in Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, “The hierarchy of caste is not about feelings or morality. It is about power—which groups have it and which do not. It is about resources—which caste is seen as worthy of them and which are not, who gets to acquire and control them and who does not. It is about respect, authority, and assumptions of competence—who is accorded these and who is not.”
This is why young people—especially Black, Queer, and intersectional youth—are being targeted so aggressively today. When you question the system, you threaten its existence. That’s why they attack education. That’s why they ban books. That’s why they want you to stop talking about race, gender, and sexuality. Because knowledge is power, and they know it.
The Myth of American Innocence
At the heart of America’s racial divide is a stubborn refusal to accept responsibility. White conservatives cling to a carefully crafted illusion: that racism is a thing of the past, that discussing inequality is “anti-American,” and that any critique of the system is a personal attack. But history tells a different story.
The current attacks on Black studies and LGBTQ+ education aren’t about protecting students; they’re about preserving power. When they strip Black history from school curriculums, when they erase Queer voices from textbooks, when they criminalize teachers for telling the truth—it’s not about “protecting children.” It’s about keeping the next generation ignorant so they don’t rise up.
The reality is, America isn’t innocent. The entire structure of this country was built on the exploitation of Black bodies, Indigenous land, and immigrant labor. That’s not a metaphor—that’s documented fact. And it’s not something to feel guilty about; it’s something to change.
As Wilkerson further questions, “Will the United States adhere to its belief in majority rule if the majority does not look as it has throughout history? This will be the chance for America either to further entrench its inequalities or to choose to lead the world as the exceptional nation that we have proclaimed ourselves to be.”
The Rotten Slice of the Pie
Most people in this country believe in fairness, equality, and justice. But the loudest voices—the ones clinging to racist and anti-Queer ideologies—are the rotten slice of the pie. The conservative narrative insists that racial justice movements are “divisive,” but the truth is, racism has always been the real divider. Slavery divided. Segregation divided. Redlining divided. Police brutality divides. Voter suppression divides. The only people afraid of unity are those who profit from division.
To move forward, we must do two things:
- Liberate white America from its own racial trauma. The fear of losing power is rooted in the false idea that justice for Black people means oppression for white people. But true freedom isn’t a zero-sum game. We don’t want revenge. We want justice.
- Destroy the myth of American innocence. The real “great replacement” happening in this country isn’t demographic—it’s the replacement of comfortable lies with hard truths. And those truths have the power to set us all free.
A New America Is Possible
America’s racial wounds run deep, but they are not beyond healing. If we want to break free from the cycle of oppression, we must stop looking for ways to divide the pie—and start feeding everyone at the same table.
Because at the end of the day, a nation built on justice, unity, and truth is the only kind worth fighting for.
By: Rev. Dr. Harold Marrero
Chief Operating Officer
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