The Black Lives Matter movement and its follow-on coalition of the People of Color have awakened me to the realization I am not just a generic American citizen. I was content and satisfied for at least 65 of my 75 years to think of myself as an American. I pledged allegiance to our flag every morning as a child as class began, felt a surge of pride as I held my hand over my heart as the Star-Spangled Banner was played, donned the nation’s uniform when I was old enough to do so, and passed through life thankful that I had been so blessed to have been born here. America was the Promised Land and I was its citizen. Then came the riots and protests and legislation and advertising and education and entertainment that declared White Americans to be the enemy of all that was good and just in the world.

The White Man, so says the not-white-man – emphasis on the word, “man” – corrupted this pristine planet with his extraction of ores, his mining and exploitation of coal to turn those ores into brass and bronze and iron and steel, his pumping of oil to produce an industrial economy that pollutes the planet with its factories making planes and trains and automobiles and tractors and computers and mobile devices and electricity to power it all. The White Man is responsible for wars and conquests, for territorial expansion and the nation-state. Had he not come upon the scene, truth and justice would prevail. There would never have been slavery and oppression, great poverty and great wealth. Were it not for the White Man evil would not exist in the world at all and humanity would have continued to live in harmony with nature in an unchanging world!

The Black Lives Matter and People of Color coalitions have created a new American identity with new flags, new anthems, new holidays, new founders, and new heroes. And this new American forced me to re-look at my American identity. I could not longer be, “just an American.” That identity is being denied me.

I have been awakened to that which has always been regarding the essence of this nation. Not only are we not a unitary state but are rather a federation of individual states united in common purpose and support, neither are we a unitary people but are rather a federation of tribal/ethnic groups united in common purpose and support. As long as those bonds of common purpose remain, we will remain one nation made of many different peoples.

Not only am I not just an American, I am also not just a White Man. My ancestors migrated to this land beginning around 1619 through the mid-1700s. But they didn’t come as White people. They came from Scotland with their resentments against the English, and from England, (with some contributions from the Nordic peoples during their invasions and occupation of the British Isles), and Germany. Each of these migrating peoples came with their politics, ideals, and religion, and joined in coalitions with the others for mutual support and defense. My Scottish ancestors did not cease to be Scots, nor did my English ancestors cease to be English when they arrived here. The Scots came with their Reformed theology and the English with their Puritan, and they lived in separate enclaves where they could maintain their identity while developing a new, American, one.

The White American is a strawman. There is a coalition, a federation, of various European ethnic groups that looks white on the surface, and which has been content to see itself without its ethnic distinctions at the forefront until now. BLM and PoC have made that identity impossible. The so-called White American is awakening to the reality that he remains Italian, or Spanish, or Portuguese, or Polish, or German, or Norwegian, or Swede, Scottish, Irish, Welsh, English, Iranian, Armenian or any of the other myriad ethnicities that migrated to this continent from Europe and from the Aryan tribes streaming from the steppes of Asia over the centuries, even as he sees how those ancestors formed political and social coalitions to strengthen and expand this nation.

Nation-states are fragile things. They can fracture in an instant, and those fractures may be irreparable. Do not think that just because we have been a nation since 1787, we shall continue to be such in the future. No nation in history has done so. We shouldn’t expect to be the exception. We almost broke apart in 1861-65 in our first Civil War, and if the British had put a few more pounds into the Confederacy, we would have done so. We should not think there could not be a second and more successful fracture.

The modern Democrat Party driven by its neo-Marxist elites, believes it can ride the People of Color coalition to lasting hegemony in which these elites can control their PoC subjects with handouts and quotas. They are wrong – at least I think and pray that they are – the POC coalition has no strong unifying principle to bind it together other than a collective resentment of the wealth and power that has accrued to their so-called White oppressors. The POC may gain a few victories before it is seen that an Indian physician whose parents came from Chennai, or a Chinese engineer who emigrated from Hong Kong has little in common with the group other than they are not originally from Europe. Their interests and worldview are closer to Boise than Beijing and they will find, if they desire to do so, they can become American in every sense of the term. When they awaken to the fact that anyone who embraces the American vision can be American completely, the coalition will come apart at the seams.

So, I have a cautious optimism that we will survive the current fracturing of our peoples back into their ethnic origins as their primary identity. We can all be Americans if we have common goals and purposes. But if not, let’s hope for a civil divorce rather than a bloody civil war.