In and Out of Darkness

The Casting Call

Author’s Note:

This piece is not written in anger. It is written in disgust – disgust at the repeated lack of humanity that defines America’s reflection. This is not about one group alone, though the Black community has borne the brunt of its cruelty for centuries. It’s about a nation that refuses to value anyone who doesn’t look, think, or descend from its so-called Founding Fathers.

This is not rage but fatigue – the exhaustion that comes from watching the same abominations repeat, generation after generation, while those who control information, history, and technology rewrite the code to protect themselves from accountability. This is about humanity – and how easily America trades it away.

When Hate Takes the Seat of Power

When a hate-mongering person, raised by immoral homegrown KKK ideals, is allowed to sit in the seat of power, the story is never just about them. It’s about the masses who cheer, close their eyes, and later claim innocence as the vehicle flies off the cliff.

The first shocking term of this president wasn’t an accident. He was placed in power by Americans’ internal hatred and insecurities – by those terrified of the possibility of another “colored person” holding the office.

Meanwhile, America has been quietly criminalizing education – making knowledge itself dangerous – while reenacting its own history in real time.

A Walk Through Time

Let’s walk back.

Abraham Lincoln – the man many call the Great Emancipator – didn’t truly want to free the enslaved. He enacted the Insurrection Act of 1808, allowing the military to be used on the U.S. soil during uprisings.

Trump followed that script, starting in Portland. But of course, not for his own insurrection – for ours.

Lincoln had three major acts:

  1. The Alien Enemies Act of 1798
  2. The insurrection Act of 1808
  3. The Suspension of Habeas Corpus (the Fifth Amendment right)

Trump’s Modern Reenactment

Trump has already checked the first box – the Alien Enemies Act – with Marco Rubio’s “express deportation” plan, targeting people based on social media posts and detaining them in airports.

He branded immigrants as “America’s greatest threat,” painting Latinos as villains. Then he activated his immoral militia – ICE, the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and others – arresting political opponents, including judges, who dared to disagree.

Next came his test run of the Insurrection Act of 1808 – during nationwide protests after the murder of unarmed George Floyd by a uniformed police officer.

Black protesters were/are  labeled rioters; white protesters were/are called patriots.

Trump wasn’t given military control then. But in his second chance, he’s trying again – activating the military and bypassing the judges who blocked him before. He just  ordered the act of “full force” against citizens.

Echoes of the Past

This all points to one goal: to finish what his ideological predecessors began – a new Civil War.

Abraham Lincoln’s war began on 12 April 1861 in Fort Sumter, South Carolina. He couldn’t use the military directly, so he formed militias – proto-ICE squads of the 1800s – starting with 75,000 volunteers and growing to 168,000. The cost: over 600,000 American lives.

When Trump cut funding to states that refused to kneel to him, he followed Lincoln’s playbook again.

The Myth of the Civil War

Let’s be clear:

The Civil War was not about freeing enslaved people. Freedom came later, as a deal – a result, not the purpose.

The war was about business.

Global financiers stopped insuring slave-based wealth, forcing the U.S. to pivot. Lincoln, a strategist and businessman, saw the need to adapt. But many slaveholding states refused to give up their free labor and their entitlement to Black bodies – so they fought.

Same Script, Different Cast

Now, history repeats itself. The ideals of the Founding Immoral Fathers live on – the urge to dominate, destroy, and keep what was never theirs.

It’s in the bloodline of a nation that can watch a child build a sandcastle, then find satisfaction in stepping on it.

That’s America: taking joy in destruction and calling it strength.

So don’t act shocked when the “Department of War” turns on its own people. War has always been America’s most profitable business outside of Black people – pain packaged as patriotism.

WWI. WW2. WWTrump.

What’s the difference?

Each leaves lives destroyed by hate.

Closing Reflection

This isn’t about one race, one president, or one generation. This is about a system that survives by stripping humanity from anyone outside its reflection.

I am not angry – I am disgusted and exhausted. Disgusted at the machinery of hate that still powers this country and I am exhausted from watching it reinvent itself under new slogans.

America keeps holding auditions for the same villains and calling it leadership. The casting call remains open, but this time, humanity demands the leading role.

Which side of history do you want to be on? The one that builds for humanity, or the one that destroys it?

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Comments

2 responses to “The Casting Call”

  1. marymtf Avatar
    marymtf

    Interesting read. I’m not American so I’m reading your article from the outside. I’m sure ICE aren’t necessarily the good guys. Just doing their job and some seem to be exceeding their authority. But please explain why there’s such an uproar about the thousands of people who crossed a border illegally being ejected.
    I remember being horrified when and how George Floyd died, but was equally horrified at the images of people stomping on the top of cars, burning buildings and looting stores. Frankly, in a civilised world, there’s no justifying it. I believe what I see not what I’m told because I have no trust about history and subjective historians who write it.

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    1. Patrick Hardeman Avatar
      Patrick Hardeman

      Thank you for engaging with the article. I appreciate thoughtful dialogue, especially from perspectives outside the United States. However, several assumptions in your comments deserve deeper examination.

      First, describing this as a “civilized world” ignores the reality that civilization has never been experienced equally. For Black and Brown people, particularly in the U.S., legal systems, economic structures, and policing institutions have historically operated not as protection, but as instruments of control. When systems are built on exclusion, displacement, and exploitation, frustration, resistance, and even unrest should not be surprising.

      Second, the question of why people are outraged about mass deportations cannot be separated from how and why borders exist in the first place. America’s original “foreigners” arrived without invitation, without consent, and without humanity. They violently occupied land, displaced Indigenous peoples, enslaved Africans, and then constructed laws to criminalize migration — laws designed specifically to prevent others from doing what they themselves were never held accountable for. This historical contradiction remains at the core of today’s immigration debate.

      Third, many migration patterns today are directly tied to centuries of colonialism, economic exploitation, political destabilization, and U.S. foreign policy. When people flee violence, poverty, or collapsed governments — often consequences of global power structures — reducing their actions to “illegal entry” strips away essential context and humanity.

      Fourth, I want to challenge the framing that centers property damage over human life. While I do not glorify destruction or looting, it is important to recognize the moral imbalance that consistently treats broken windows as more shocking than broken bodies. When people erupt after decades of abuse, surveillance, and systemic violence, the outrage often focuses more on their reaction than on the injustice that produced it.

      Finally, saying “they’re just doing their job” has historically been used to excuse countless moral atrocities. Legality does not equal morality. Entire systems of oppression have operated legally. When institutions are built on unethical foundations, enforcing them does not absolve responsibility — it magnifies it.

      This conversation isn’t about excusing chaos. It’s about confronting the deeper structures that produce despair, displacement, and rage in the first place. Until those realities are honestly addressed, appeals to “civility” will continue to ring hollow to those who have never been granted its protections.

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