Detail of an American flag with a canvas and paint texture

“The responsibility of the well-being of the people of this nation rests primarily on the shoulders of the leadership. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad said to us that neither justice nor peace shall come to the nations of the earth until the 400-year-old problem of Black people in America has been solved with justice. The reason why no other nation can have justice or peace until the problem of the Black people in America is properly solved is because Almighty God Himself is championing our Cause.

No solution to this grave problem can be considered ‘proper,’ nor will any solution work unless that solution is in accord with the nature of the problem; and then harmony with the demands of the time. That solution, and the time, is given by the prophets and is found written in the Bible and in the Holy Qur’an.”

—The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, National Press Club 1984

Consider these simple words children recite daily in U.S. public school systems: “I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

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For the non-White and even poor children of this country, those words have never rung fully true as the color of one’s skin could doom a child to slavery, suffering, death and a life of ignoble suffering. But the fundamental agreement, a least fundamental White agreement on norms, lies and myths, was enough to largely hold the country together through war and great periods of economic and social success.

America could boast that her economy and her military had no equal and she was surely the master of her fate and the world’s greatest power.

She was America the great, untouched by outside forces, unconquered by external enemies and her shores unblemished by foreign invasion. No enemy, she could declare, had ever overtaken her on her stolen land, land drenched with the blood of Blacks torn from Africa and the Original inhabitants of this nation.

No enemy may be able to take America, but her swift disintegration and downfall continues despite a well-meaning president. She has become a habitation of devils as the Bible teaches. She is plagued by corruption, gross immorality, spiritual blindness, economic injustice, political chasms, inordinate pride, haughtiness, and a swiftness to move in ways that shed blood.

The fall has been long and swift and most notably seen with the astonishing hubris and deceit of President Trump but the fall was ushered in by the hypocrisy of freedom talk and inalienable rights while an entire nation of people was enshrined as a sub-class, a non-human species for the benefit of their slave masters in the founding document of this country.

Man’s hand holding automatic pistol laying limp across US flag

Even the great optimist American president Barack Obama was recently led to concede how daunting the darkness is that has overtaken the United States. “All of us, as citizens, have to recognize that the path towards an undemocratic America is not going to happen in just one bang. It happens in a series of steps,” Mr. Obama said during a recent interview with CNN anchor Anderson Cooper.

But the question is not whether “democracy” can survive. The question is can America survive? Can anyone bind up the wounds of this nation, which persists in evil and inordinacy blindly wandering on, refusing to admit fault and always playing the victim?

For almost 100 years, the Message of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad has been inside of America calling to the right path, calling to righteousness, issuing a warning against evil, providing a model for reform and a fountain of Supreme Wisdom and deep spiritual truths. Yet the patriarch of the Nation has been subjected to slander, mockery and lies and his Servant, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, has been targeted with the same. In the meantime, precious time has passed that could have improved conditions and widespread darkness has grown.

So today murder is literally the order of the day, whether mass shootings, fratricidal violence, police executions, road rage or suicide. Those who have not, have not. Those who have, gain more, and more and more. White anger and White angst grow. The White majority is fed up with talk of fairness, diversity, respect and inclusion. They simply want to be White and they want to revel in Whiteness without apology. Now it is White American versus White American even as Blacks and non-Whites are targeted, suffering and denied freedom, justice, equality and basic respect for their rights.

“Obama’s concerns come about a month after a FiveThirtyEight analysis of recent polling indicated that the GOP’s big lies about the 2020 election—namely, that a combination of election fraud and illegal changes to state voting laws resulted in Trump having the presidency stolen from him—are having a corrosive impact, with 70 percent of Republicans wrongly believing President Joe Biden’s victory over Trump was illegitimate,” reported Vox.com

“Twice in the last 20 years, (Democratic) presidential candidates got more votes but lost the election. And now that the 2022 redistricting cycle is beginning, Republicans in many states will be able to get fewer votes but end up with a majority of seats,” observed NPR.

If a country cannot amicably resolve politics at the ballot box, is that country doomed to resolve elections by the bullet? America is in trouble.

And as Pew opinion research observed last year, “Overall, it’s not at all clear that Americans are further apart from each other than we’ve been in the past, or even that we are more ideologically or affectively divided—that is, exhibiting hostility to those of the other party—than citizens of other democracies. What’s unique about this moment—and particularly acute in America—is that these divisions have collapsed onto a singular axis where we find no toehold for common cause or collective national identity.”

Can a nation exist without a national identity? And can Blacks find a future in a nation that does not even have a vision for itself?