I drafted this a few weeks ago. I sat on it because it is heavy and I wasn’t sure I wanted to share this with the world as it is deeply personal and incredibly disheartening. It feels whatever forms of resistance we mount are pointless, wasted energy, wasted time. I’m not sure I feel that and I’m not sure I don’t feel that. I go back and forth with “what is the fucking point?” to “fuck everything and fight like all hell.” There isn’t a lot of middle ground these days. I always find it helpful to look back at history and return to the ancestral wisdom of those who resisted, fought, and survived so that I could be here today.

With the events over the last week (political assassinations, white supremacist violence at the No Kings protests, Israel launching a war with Iran, and the world being generally on fire while the U.S. sinks deeper and deeper into fascism, authoritarianism, a new dark ages) and seeing so many people all over socials decrying all that is happening right now with shock about the violence, horror at the amoral responses of Republican elected officials, and disgust at Democrat elected officials standing by Israel and their constant victimhood (even as they have launched military operations on three independent nations), I think it’s important to remember and truly understand the legacies from which we “evolved.” Even today (June 16, 2025) a federal judge struck down 47 regime’s firing of NIH staff and researchers, exclaiming something to the effect of “how far have we sunk, have we no shame?” I would argue, we haven’t sunk, this is where we’ve always been as a nation and no, we have no shame. None. Zilch. Zip. Nada.

The cruelty of the (mostly white, but not exclusively so) Christian right/nationalists, white supremacists, etc is no surprise when you realize they are the descendants (if not direct descendants, then intellectual descendants) of the Christian’s before them. 

By that I mean, if you take a tour of the Cape Coast Slave Dungeons in Ghana, you see that the church sat atop the male dungeons. 

Those dungeons are 3 connected and separate rooms, giant spaces, with walls that are probably 2-3 stories high, and a few small barred windows near the top (the only way fresh air was let into these musty rooms). Each room would have up to 1000 men; which at that rate would be standing room only. Each room seems about the size of a basketball court, maybe a bit larger. I’m not a spacial size expert, this is my own comparison to help me imagine what 1000 men might look like in those spaces. 

With nowhere to sit or lie down, I imagine the men standing, leaning on walls and each other, with the weak and infirm sitting. I imagine immense suffering, having been human trafficked and force marched 400+ miles, separated from family and familiarity. I imagine terror, deep anguish, physical pain. And did I say immense terror? 

The floor, beginning on the ramp down into the rooms is coated with a black substance, that when I first saw it, thought perhaps it was a preservation technique. But no. It is 400 years of the calcified tears, blood, and human waste of the ancestors, as thick as 9 inches in some areas. 

I paint this picture to give context to the next realization, the most monstrous realization, I had and have to remind myself of when I get all Pollyanna-ish. 

So, the church sits atop the male dungeons. To go inside the door, one must first pass by a giant square trap door that is open to the human chattel below. The trap door and the square hole down into the dungeons is probably approximately 2ftx2ft. 

I would think that the sounds of the human suffering below would be heard within the confines of the church; the people entering the church would most definitely hear the human suffering below them, with or without the trap door open. And they would pray to their god, thinking themselves holy, righteous, and sanctified while sitting atop the immense suffering of the humans who would become chattel. 

Of course, colonization, the genocide of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, the human trafficking and generational enslavement of millions of Africans, and so many other monstrous things (the Holocaust, Zionism, the Crusades, I mean so much) can be attributed to Christianity. And we still act surprised the supposedly virtuous, righteous, devout people would behave differently. But, they don’t. Religion isn’t a litmus test of goodness; it’s a human created system of control and a convenient veil to monstrous behaviors. 

So, the next time you think, “oh my god, how could they”, “they would never”, or “have they no shame”, remember this tale and realize, they don’t care, they absolutely would and have, and no they do not. 

This lineage is embedded within their DNA – if I carry the generational PTSD from my ancestors, then they absolutely carry the generational violence in their DNA – although, I’m not that kind of scientist or doctor. This is why appeals to their better angels, to their humanity, to their compassion, to reason do not work. They simply do not care and view themselves as holy, righteous, and religiously correct in their assessment of and behavior towards other humans. 

Because everything that comes next will stir shock and disbelief, we have to see as adults, not children. We have to see realistically, not fantastically. We have to stay woke, and not allow ourselves to be hoodwinked or fall for the litany of propaganda proliferating in every corner of the information sphere. We have to remember who we’re dealing with, no matter how uncomfortable.