Welcome to America

Anti-African: In Donald Trump's America, 32 out of Africa's 53 countries already face a US travel ban, or a threat of one.

- Michael Brian Lee

I find myself in Trump’s MAGA, which is more accurately MAWA - Make America White Again

've been neglecting my creativity column for a while, and here’s why: my attention has been hijacked by the swift decay of my other country, my original country, and if you don’t know me personally and haven’t heard my accent, let me give you a hint to which that is: the one nation, under God, with liberty and justice for some, that used to, sometimes, inspire other nations around the world to greatness.

Those days have ended rapidly, like a kiloton bomb dropped from a tall tower hitting the pavement in the middle of a city we once admired. Step by step with the frenetic speed of a cocaine polka, we have seen the remarkably intentional decline of American exceptionalism in the name of — what, exactly? Saving the nation from brown people?

My fiancée, a Shona woman, says MAGA ought really to be MAWA — Make America White Again. Trumpism is not strictly a political project, in other words, but also, or perhaps primarily, a racial one.

As evidence of this, note that the only people granted special refugee status under the Trump administration are our own group of 59 “persecuted” white farmers, some of whom are not even farmers, and none of whom have been persecuted under any realistic definition. One, Charl Kleinhaus, is the chief executive of a mining company. Many have surely made this move to get a US passport and a relocation bonus that includes furniture, housing, a pre-paid phone, and even groceries.

Yes, groceries, which is a real benefit since their prices continue to rise in blessed America, even as Trump claims they are coming down. He also said on Liberation Day that the term groceries is old-fashioned yet beautiful. But that’s another story.