Is America a "Congenitally Racist Country Erected Upon the Plunder of Life, Liberty, Labor and Land?"

At this moment especially, when we search for answers to Ferguson, New York and elsewhere, we can find them in this stunning piece of real, old-time, long-form, investigative journalism, from the cover of the Atlantic magazine in June. And the chief answer, without question, is that we are a nation founded on white supremacy and still imposing it actively through governmental power, from policing on up to health insurance and housing policy and much more.

Here is the author, Ta-Nahesi Coates, from a Nov. 26 post about the agony of watching a black president contort himself so as not to have to address the essential core of racism at the heart of our economy, polity, history and America's existence"

"In nearly every major American city one can find a population of people whose very existence, whose very history, whose very traditions, are an assault upon this country's nationalist instincts. Black people are the chastener of their own country. Their experience says to America, 'You wear the mask.'"

White supremacy is pervasive and it is part of everything we are as Americans. If you read nothing else, please read "The Case for Reparations: Two hundred fifty years of slavery. Ninety years of Jim Crow. Sixty years of separate but equal. Thirty-five years of racists housing policy. Until we reckon with our compounding moral debts, America will never be whole."

We must name the truth of our country and we must face and honestly confront and answer for it. Only then, do we create a way to heal.