The Trumpian verbal attack on four black first-term congresswomen has brought again into sharp relief the matter of race and racism in America. This issue, coupled with the horrendous treatment of immigrants on the country’s Southern border, has been met with the constant refrain, from politicians and pundits alike, that “This is not who we are!”

Hearing this phrase so often in the context of racism, hatred and bigotry in America has forced me to look more deeply at it and to wonder aloud how true the phrase is and whether the sentiment the phrase is protesting is not, in fact, what America is or certainly becoming.

What the phrase speaks to is a belief that there are values that have informed the founding of the nation that are inclusive of all people, welcoming to the stranger (an immigrant nation), and which appeal to the better angel (whatever that is) within the nation’s character and experience. It is often used as a pushback against the bigoted excesses of President Trump and to cement in people’s minds that America is a caring nation.

How caring has America been in recent times? The terrible treatment of immigrants on the southern border has revealed, to a great extent, where America stands on the race question. There are those who would suggest that Trump is an aberration that will pass. If this is so, why does he continue to have such a strong support in his party? Despite his arrogant, racist statements in recent times he still enjoys over 80 per cent support in his party. In many ways he has become the voice of the party and as such has rendered impotent many Republicans in the Congress who are obviously enraged at his public comments but prefer to remain silent.

I am beginning to think that what we might have assumed or taken for granted to be at the fundamental core of what America is needs to be critiqued. Racist bigotry and hatred of minorities have been part and parcel of the nation’s psyche. This is at the root of the anti-Semitic sentiments that one often sees played out in violence against Jews. Consider the decimation of the Indian population. When the first European settlers came to America they were welcomed by the Indian natives — the truest expression of the American. They did not ask them for a visa or a passport, but welcomed them and availed them of their generosity and hospitality. But in time their way of life was despoiled. Those who were not killed or had their best lands taken from them in savage battles with the whites were herded into reservations where many died.

Fast-forward to the period of slavery and we come face to face with the most painful period of American history in which racism, hatred and bigotry became the organising principles of white supremacy. It is the treatment of the black population that is the most uncomfortable truth that Americans do not want to talk about. But the truth is that black Africans were taken to what was then America against their will. To cut a long story short, they were subjected to the most cruel and inhumane punishment known to man. Apart from physical pain from horrendous torture methods, there was the torture of the mind. Slaves, by law, were not recognised as people. They were mere chattel to be used and abused as their white masters saw fit.

Even the man who penned the US Declaration of Independence and became the third president of the country, Thomas Jefferson, had slaves. When he declared that all men are created equal, he was not thinking about the slaves — some of which he had on his own plantation. Their lack of humanity or depersonalised status did not prevent him from assuaging his sexual appetite at the expense of at least one female slave (Sally Hemmings) whose name endured in history. A civil war was fought over the need by white planters in the south to keep their slaves. More Americans died in the civil war than in all wars in which Americans have fought combined. This war pitted Americans against Americans in a contest to preserve the union and to end or maintain slavery.

After laws were passed to emancipate the slaves there was no real desire to respect them as individuals. The newly freed slaves were thrust into a society that hated them to fend for themselves. We now enter the period of Jim Crow in the south, where the rabid racist policy of segregation was destined to reinforce the inferiority of the blacks and assert the intelligence and supremacy of the whites. The policy of segregation was, perhaps, more heinous than that of slavery. It is during this time that the psyche of the American black was disfigured almost to the point of rendering him impotent.

There is nothing significant that the black population has achieved in America that has not been done with hard struggle, sweat and blood. The white ruling class has never come to an accommodation of conscience to concede anything of importance to the black population. This is an uncomfortable truth that many would wish to ignore. There would not have been the transformative civil rights legislations without the bitter struggle of a Martin Luther King Jr, who led the struggle for change. The white ruling class will make token concessions from time to time, but not anything of great consequence that can fundamentally alter the way of life of the blacks for good. This is another uncomfortable truth that people do not want to talk about.

All that Trump has done is to hold up a mirror to the nation. He has refused to look in the mirror himself or, if he has, he does not recognise the image that is staring back at him as a contributor to the racist bigotry in the nation. In a real sense, he is saying this is who we are. Is he holding up to America an image of itself that has always been there? Is he merely giving voice to a reality that has always been there but which many have refused to acknowledge? There are those who believe that the country can just forget about slavery, its aftermath, and its consequences and just move on as things have changed. But the stubborn fact remains that there is still deep-seated structural racism that is hobbling the progress of the black person on almost every front. Some progress has been made, but there is still a great deal to be done. It is time that the country has a serious conversation about racism and bigotry. Band-Aid tokenisms do not help where radical surgery is required.

Dr Raulston Nembhard is a priest and social commentator. Send comments to the Observer or stead6655@aol.com.