American sincerity about race is itself a lie that papers over identity’s founding contradiction

Evidence

Baldwin cuts to the heart of the matter here. Our sincere commitments to democracy have always been shadowed by the lie evident in our practices. Sincerity, ostensibly, requires that we not mislead or deceive ourselves or others—that we, at least, seek to be true to ourselves. But in matters regarding race, sincerity comes with the lie, for the very heart of American identity is at stake. White America has to believe this stuff. Like the drunken southern gentleman who sincerely, and greedily, grabbed Baldwin’s cock, the emptiness is revealed in knowing that a lie undergirds it all. Panic ensues when crises reveal the truth, because we are snatched from our fantasies and forced to confront who we really are. — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Begin Again, 513

Categorization

• DEFINE: Directly articulates ‘the lie’ — sincerity coupled with the lie as the core of American panic. Central to the reader’s mandate to define the concept.
• DEEPTHINKING: The mechanism — crises snatching us from fantasy, panic as the response to forced self-confrontation — is dense and completes the after-times causal machinery.
• XREF: connects to: Founding-era unity rhetoric was a conscious misrepresentation of American diversity — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying: The New…, 146