The Present Malaise: “Erasing Diversity, Reasserting Dominion: The Reactionary Triad of Theocracy, White Supremacy, and Capitalism in the American Malaise”
“And you may ask yourself, "Well, how did I get here?" ….same as it ever was.”
When I was 19 years old, in 1972, I began, to use the language of that era, to make my plans to leave the AmeriKKKan plantation. From puberty through my late teens, everything I experienced in this country made it clear: if I wanted to live fully, freely, I would have to seek my fortune elsewhere. I left like Nguyễn Sinh Cung, aka Ho Chi Minh left Nghệ An Province in north-central Vietnam, a region known historically for producing scholars, revolutionaries, and strong nationalist sentiment, damn, a lot like Black Chicago. He left 3 steps ahead of the SGI French secret police and I had the FBI harassing me, I was only 2 steps ahead. If not for a severe case of malaria, I might never have returned.
To me, there was always more nightmare than dream in the so-called American Dream.
Every day we live in this system, we risk dying by it. The worst part? No matter what I earn, build, or accomplish—it can all be taken away, and the color of my skin would be justification enough. My mother taught me to read early, maybe too early. I read too many books, learned too much history, and knew too much truth to live comfortably inside the myth.
I never wanted to have children here—but I did. And now I have grandchildren, including one granddaughter living abroad, vowing never to return if she can help it.
It’s funny how people talk about Black folks and people of color getting “handouts,” while everyone I know has had to work three times as hard to get half as much. That’s not a fluke, that’s the way America is designed.
I make no apologies to those who reject my statements. Race isn’t my problem—I can live without it. Can you? And if you can, can you live like my hero John Brown did? That’s what true allyship looks like—not slogans, not hashtags, but sacrifice.
I’ve never benefited from DEI/Affirmative Action whatever it was, or was supposed to be—because I’ve always chosen to work as far outside the system as possible. I was not the guy you talk sports with over the water color, and them never invited you over to watch a game. You were more concerned about my red, black and green lapel pen, upset that it was a black nationalist flag instead of an American one. My white work companions seem disturbed that I would read Pushkin at lunch. Even more interesting Black people at the factory would ask me “what I was getting out of that.” I wanted no parts of an Idiocracy.
Over the past 72 years, I’ve watched the ebb and flow of American complacency, the refusal to believe we’d ever end up here—in a state of shrinking freedom, creeping erasure, and accelerated removal.
The neoliberal project has failed. It has hollowed out every institution and left a vacuum now filled by authoritarianism, fascism, idiocracy, and theocracy. Its only answer is “reform”—but what we need is transformation.
In this contemporary political landscape, we witness a deliberate dismantling of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives across the United States. Government offices, universities, corporate HR departments, and K-12 classrooms alike face systematic attacks on pluralism. This movement, however, extends beyond a mere backlash against perceived “wokeness”—it represents a deeper historical alliance between evangelical theocracy, white supremacy, and capitalism, long entrenched in American society and now reasserting itself aggressively.
Under White Supremacy, Everyone Becomes Its Victim—Even Those It Claims to Protect
White supremacy presents itself as a system of privilege, but in truth, it is a system of distortion and diminishment—for everyone. While it brutally targets Black and brown communities, Indigenous peoples, and others at the margins, it also warps the humanity of those it elevates by designating them superior by default, not by merit.
Under white supremacy, hierarchy replaces excellence. Value is assigned not by talent, effort, or creativity, but by proximity to whiteness—culturally, economically, and ideologically. In this arrangement:
Mediocrity thrives when whiteness is the currency rather than competence.
Unqualified leaders rise because they look or sound “appropriate” to the dominant narrative.
Innovation is stifled, critique is pathologized, and nonwhite brilliance is often ignored, stolen, or punished.
This system degrades institutions—schools, governments, workplaces—because it favors comfort over challenge, sameness over diversity of thought. It upholds a false meritocracy that erodes trust, stagnates progress, and undercuts the pursuit of truth.
And even those who benefit materially from white supremacy suffer spiritually and intellectually. It teaches fear instead of curiosity, entitlement instead of empathy, and delusion instead of clarity.
In this way, white supremacy is not simply a structure of exclusion—it is a system of enforced mediocrity, one that demands everyone play a lesser version of themselves to keep the lie intact.
This moment is not new. American history reveals a consistent pattern: every time there is even a modest advance in rights, recognition, or opportunity for people of color, a systemic backlash follows. The end of Reconstruction gave rise to Jim Crow. The gains of the Civil Rights Movement triggered the Southern Strategy, mass incarceration, and a war on affirmative action. The election of a Black president was followed by a white nationalist resurgence and voter suppression campaigns. These backlashes are not incidental—they are structural reflexes of a system designed to reassert dominance whenever equity becomes even remotely possible.
Evangelical Theocracy: The Moral Weaponization of Politics
Evangelical Christian nationalism increasingly wields religion as a blunt political tool. Unlike the civil religion of past social justice leaders, contemporary evangelical politics positions America explicitly as a “Christian nation,” rejecting secular pluralism and non-Christian identities as threats. Under the guise of “religious freedom,” this political theocracy seeks the legal sanction to discriminate, marginalizing communities historically protected by DEI policies.
White Supremacy: The Operating System of National Memory
White supremacy, in its structural form, acts as the invisible backbone to these attacks on diversity. It systematically erases history and identity through legislative bans on critical race theory, defunding diversity programs, and censoring multicultural education. This ideological shift aims to restore whiteness as the default identity, delegitimizing representation and equity as radical threats rather than fundamental democratic ideals. People of color, LGBTQ+ communities, and other marginalized groups are recast as obstacles rather than equal citizens, reinforcing existing power dynamics.
Capitalism: Profiting from Division
Capitalism, particularly its neoliberal iteration, thrives on inequality and social fragmentation. DEI initiatives, which challenge the unequal distribution of power and resources, are naturally antagonistic to such a system. Corporations increasingly retreat from DEI commitments, not only due to external political pressure but because meaningful diversity efforts undermine entrenched economic hierarchies. The rollback of DEI aligns corporate interests with reactionary politics, prioritizing profit and stability over social equity.
The Illusion of Merit, the Machinery of Control
Together, evangelical theocracy, white supremacy, and capitalism create a powerful illusion—that racial and economic dominance reflect natural merit. This illusion is intoxicating, leading individuals to support policies actively detrimental to their interests, seeking validation in dominance rather than solidarity. Thus, the phrase “white supremacy is a hell of a drug” becomes an apt metaphor, highlighting the addictive nature of power and the difficulty in dismantling entrenched systems.
Wrapping it up: Detoxing the Republic
To counteract this regressive triad, we must rigorously confront these intersecting forces. Genuine democratic revival requires challenging the narrative that pluralism threatens societal stability, that equity is zero-sum, and that power inherently belongs to a single race, faith, or economic class. Until such confrontation occurs, America remains trapped in cycles of reaction and relapse, fearing the profound liberation that true equity and inclusivity might ultimately bring.