Ethnocidal Freedom • noun • (eth-no-sigh-dull free-dum)
Definition: An interpretation of freedom that is built upon perpetual division and the destruction of culture at the expense of our shared humanity
Origin: The Sustainable Culture Lab
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My book THE CRIME WITHOUT A NAME was released on October 12, 2021!
The book has received glowing reviews and Publishers Weekly says that THE CRIME WITHOUT A NAME is one of the top books of Fall 2021.
You can order the book—including the audiobook—and watch recordings of my book tour discussions at Eaton and the New York Public Library at thecrimewithoutaname.com.
Following the result of the Kyle Rittenhouse trial, we felt it was necessary to provide language to explain Rittenhouse’s troubling acquittal.
In addition to this newsletter, I published a column in The Daily Beast that can also help explain this troubling verdict: Kyle Rittenhouse’s Lethal Pursuit of Happiness is America’s Legacy.
Many of the conversations circulating online seem to focus on conceptions of race and morality to either articulate one’s outrage or joy at the decision, but at SCL we believe that it is important to focus our attention on America’s culture instead. Regardless of whether one thinks Rittenhouse is a racist or not, or a bad person or a good person, the important part of this story is that America’s judicial system has condoned his actions.
According to American laws, Rittenhouse’s actions are the actions that American society wants to protect and therefore encourage other people to engage in. American laws assert that these killings are justified, and that the manner in which Rittenhouse killed two people and injured a third need to be protected. Ensuring that Rittenhouse remains a free man now equates to a preservation of what American society considers to be freedom.
I have spoken at length about America’s ethnocidal culture, and the Rittenhouse decision necessitates a longer discussion about how an ethnocidal society defines freedom.
But what is ethnocidal freedom?
Within an ethnocidal society that is built upon the destruction of culture, could ethnocidal “freedom” be the equivalent of terrorism within a more equitable, and less divided and exploitative society?
What does an ethnocidal society define as freedom?
The United States of America celebrates our democracy because democracy is supposed to be the best system of government for providing people with freedom. Democracies are not perfect, but the principles and philosophy of democracy are supposed to create, cultivate, and sustain freedom. So now the question arises, “How do democracies cultivate freedom, and why is this system of government supposedly so good at it?”
For me, the answer to this question comes from a democracy’s philosophical reliance on acknowledging and valuing our shared humanity. Democracies are supposed to ensure that all people have an equal voice within society. The democratic structures that a society creates to implement that equality and shared humanity will vary from place to place. Some structures will be more effective than others, but the faith in democracy resides in believing that our belief in our shared humanity will remedy the flaws and allow us to improve our society.
So, democracies cultivate freedom because the people within a democratic society recognize our shared humanity. But what happens when a society built upon perpetual division and the destruction of culture—an ethnocidal society—creates a “democracy”? Clearly, this ethnocidal society’s concept of freedom would not derive from our shared humanity because this society is built upon embracing the division of our humanity.
Therefore, within an ethnocidal society, “freedom” could actually be the opposite of freedom. Freedom within an ethnocidal society could equate to terror within a more equitable and empathetic society.
This observation is very important because as Americans, we have all been indoctrinated with ethnocidal ideas as we live in an ethnocidal society. Therefore, all of us, to varying degrees, have been encouraged to engage in terror in the name of freedom. The trial and acquittal of Kyle Rittenhouse is a prime example of America’s dangerous ethnocidal norm.
Firstly, I do not advocate speculating about Rittenhouse’s beliefs. I have no idea if Rittenhouse is or is not racist. What we need to focus on is the American culture that has encouraged and condoned his actions.
Rittenhouse illegally obtained a Smith & Wesson AR-15--style semi-automatic rifle and has suffered no punishment. Yet his friend who gave him the gun faces felony charges for giving him the gun. Rittenhouse is not in trouble for illegally having a gun, but the person who provided him with the gun may get punished.
Rittenhouse disrupted a protest while brandishing that weapon and unsurprisingly, Rittenhouse’s presence made other people feel threatened. Also, Rittenhouse was legally allowed to brandish his illegally obtained weapon in public because Wisconsin is an “open carry” state.
Rittenhouse then felt threatened by the people who felt threatened by his presence, and he felt that lethal force was the best method of adjudicating this conflict.
Rittenhouse’s presence with a deadly weapon made people fear for their life and believe that their freedom could be taken away in a flash. They confronted Rittenhouse to preserve their freedom, and this conflict, which his presence instigated, made him feel that his life and freedom were in danger. To preserve his “freedom,” he engaged in terror and violence: killing two people and injuring a third.
This deadly clash is now defined as a legally condoned act of self-defense to preserve one’s freedom, but the tension only exists because America has encouraged Americans to obtain deadly weapons and carry them in public as a viable means of protection.
This is a recipe for terror, but in America’s ethnocidal society, it has now become synonymous with the preservation of freedom.
Ethnocidal Freedom and America’s Founding Fathers
The origins of America’s dystopian inversion and erasure of freedom derives from colonization and the founding of the United States of America. This realization is a hard pill to swallow for many Americans because we have been taught to revere our Founding Fathers, but at some point, our society must become mature enough to acknowledge the tragic and destructive flaws at the core of their ideals and way of life.
When I think about the horrible ethnocidal ideals of America’s founders, I often think about a conversation I had with a friend about Thomas Jefferson.
A couple of years ago, during a casual conversation, I said something dismissive about Jefferson, and a friend of mine interjected. They felt I was speaking too negatively of this “great” man. I responded by saying that he was an awful person because he owned people and supported slavery.
Their first response was acknowledging that slavery was the societal norm, and I agreed by saying that the other people who supported slavery were also awful.
Next, they stated that I needed to acknowledge the many great ideas and accomplishments that he had, and despite supporting slavery, which my friend believes is wrong, it should still be acceptable to celebrate him as a great man.
I responded to this statement by asking them if they would still believe that I was a good person or a smart person, if I had imprisoned people in my basement.
They responded by characterizing the comparison as unfair, but I persisted. I asked, “If it was common knowledge that a friend of yours imprisoned and enslaved other people, do you think you would tell other people to completely ignore this friend’s atrocities and that we instead should celebrate his great writing, intellect, and other cultured attributes?”
This friend was now uncomfortable because they knew they could not defend this hypothetical friend, but they also felt inclined to still defend Jefferson. They struggled to imagine a world where they did not celebrate this man and overlook his terrorism.
This conversation is important because our society’s understanding of freedom comes from people whose actions and way of life would be denounced today. In America, freedom and terror have always been interwoven, but we have long preferred to address our dystopian status quo by imagining that the terror has never existed.
For a person whose way of life relies on oppressing other people, their concept of freedom will include inflicting terror upon others. Deadly weapons will become a natural extension of what they call freedom. Killing people who are threatened by one’s capacity to inflict terror will now become classified as “self-defense.” Terror has now become an extension of oneself as one preserves the “freedom” to oppress others, and the inability to inflict terror would be considered an erasure of one’s “freedoms.”
America’s founders who legalized an ethnocidal status quo are not bad people merely because of how they treated other people and lived their lives, but because of how they have instructed generations of Americans to treat other people and live our lives.
When one’s society is built upon inflicting terror, their tragic societal norm will always consist of justifying and normalizing terrorism. In recent years, as school shootings and other acts of gun violence became more frequent in America, Republicans and supporters of the Second Amendment, even worked to normalize this terror by describing it as “the price we must pay for freedom.”
Rittenhouse’s freedom demonstrates the latest example of the profound dangers of ethnocidal freedom, but this absence of freedom has always been the American norm.
The Altars Festival exhibition is open to the public Friday - Sunday from noon to 6pm until December 10 at STABLE Arts located at 336 Randolph Place NE, Washington, DC 20002.