Last weekend, a group of demonstrators brandishing Nazi flags and a banner reading “Make America White Again” with an accompanying swastika stood atop a bridge above Houston’s Interstate 45. The group also paid City Hall a visit.
Several Houstonians responded to the sight of the white nationalists with surprise, with some saying they have never seen such hateful messages in the Bayou City.
Must be nice.
I don’t know a Black soul in H-Town who has not seen or personally experienced hateful messages in this city or any other U.S. town we’ve spent more than a minute in.
Why?
Because America is a Nazi nation. Literally.
THE BLUEPRINT
Apparently, it’s been a secret since the 1930s – a secret because this information has been in books – that as members of the not-yet-fully formed Nazi Party were looking for models around the globe upon which to base their overtly discriminatory laws against European Jews, their leaders and scholars determined that the best example of a country putting discriminatory, unapologetic hate into law was by far the United States of America.
These pre-Nazis concluded that the race to discover the most legally discriminatory and unfair society on the planet wasn’t even close. “America the Free” won this contest by a landslide. Hence, those who engineered and constructed what we now know to be the Nazi Party that sought to bring the globe under the heel of a myth of white supremacy-believing, dictatorial ethno-state used the U.S.’s legal mistreatment and subjugation of Black people as their model.
In other words, there would be no Nazi state without the example of the United States.
But wait, there’s more.
Several of these pre-Nazis, as they were devising the legal framework for what eventually grew into a genocidal campaign, said there was no way America was actually doing some of the over-the-top racist things their researchers were reporting to this Nazi “planning committee.”
Think about that for a minute. Nazis were reviewing laws, customs, and practices of segregation and oppression American style (against Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, and Indigenous people) and looked at each other and said, “Ain’t no way America is doing the absolute most and getting away with it. Ain’t no way they’re able to so ruthlessly and completely oppress and abuse entire races of people, and do so with little or no negative pushback from their own people and press or the people and media of the world.”
Research this for yourself. If I’m lyin’ I’m flyin’.
USA, USA!
But wait, there’s more.
The U.S. was not just the model for top-level oppression for the Nazis; there was another global USA that looked to America as the GOAT in terms of insane levels of unashamed, in-your-face oppression – the Union of South Africa.
Yes, the apartheid system that kept South Africa’s majority Black citizens in a state of fourth-class citizenship in their own land, fashioned their form of legalized hate after the United States of America.
So, while whitefolk in America are aghast at seeing American citizens proudly displaying their Nazi gear and shouting their Nazi cheers, Blackfolk are wondering, “How y’all aint know?”
NY: IF YOU CAN MAKE IT THERE, YOU’LL MAKE IT ANYWHERE
But how whitefolk don’t know is really not a mystery. They have a long history of willfully ignoring history, or choosing to flat re-write it to reflect their own imagined image. Which is probably why none of the history books I read while in my K-college classes ever mentioned the 1939 New York Madison Square Garden sold-out American Nazi rally.
Nazi ‘Pro America Rally’ at New York’s Madison Square Garden, Feb. 20, 1939. Courtesy NPR/Field of Vision.
Yes, you read that right. But just for more context, read this NPR article excerpt:
“On the evening of Feb. 20, 1939, the marquee of New York’s Madison Square Garden was lit up with the evening’s main event: a ‘Pro American Rally.’
The organizers had chosen the date in celebration of George Washington’s birthday and had procured a 30-foot-tall banner of America’s first president for the stage. More than 20,000 men and women streamed inside and took their seats. The view they had was stunning: Washington was hung between American flags — and swastikas.”
Yes, the pro-Nazi rally was billed as the “PRO AMERICAN RALLY.”
EVERYTHING’S BIGGER IN THE LONE STAR STATE
Texans have their own contributions to this story.
With nearly 70 WWII prisoner-of-war camps, Texas had approximately twice as many as any other state. These camps ranged from extremely large (housing thousands of prisoners) to small (holding less than 100). In total, over 50,000 German soldiers were held in the Lone Star State during WWII.
And get this, even Nazi prisoners of war in Texas were shocked at the blatant racism and mistreatment their white American captors heaped upon U.S. Blacks. There are legions of articles that highlight how countless Texas “cowboys” and “maidens” had their hearts all a-flutter because they were so taken by these Nazi soldiers.
CAN’T STOP, WON’T STOP
This U.S./Nazi love affair ran deep and hit on all levels. Did I erroneously say “ran,” as in past tense? Yo, it’s still ongoing, as Blackfolk have seen over the years via every anti-Black Lives Matter protest in this country; and every Blue Lives Matter gathering from sea to shining sea; and every anti-CRT gathering; and every insurrection and insurrection-related event. At all of these happenings and more, U.S. Nazis have been in full effect.
And quiet as it’s kept, the number of Republican elected officials who have endorsed Nazi views, spoken at Nazi-sponsored gatherings, and stood by Nazi rhetoric spewing individuals, refusing to denounce them and their ways, is astounding to many but expected when you ask Blackfolk.
ENDLESS LOVE
We’ve always seen this U.S./Nazi connection with clear eyes. What surprised the hell out of us was the fact that the U.S. ever went to war against the Nazis when the two groups carried themselves like identical twins or kissing cousins. Hell, so many of America’s most celebrated heroes (Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh, just to name a couple) were celebrated as Nazis heroes, as well. Ford, who has been touted as the symbol of all things American for decades, received the highest Nazi honors for his service to their cause.
The Ford Motor Company’s German subsidiary even published what can only be described as a love poem to Hitler titled “Führer” in their in-house magazine in April of 1940, which stated:
We have sworn to you once,
But now we make our allegiance permanent.
Like currents in a torrent lost,
We all flow into you.
Even when we cannot understand you,
We will go with you.
One day we may comprehend,
How you can see our future.
Hearts like bronze shields,
We have placed around you,
And it seems to us, that only
You can reveal God’s world to us.
Get a room, you two!
Houstonians were “shocked” to see a handful of Nazis parading on a bridge over I-45 a few days ago. What’s shocking to Blackfolk is that Nazis have been alive and well, and doing their thing in this nation since day one… and whitefolk swear they had no clue.
Ni**a please!
