Modernization in Full Effect

(TCU)- Americans have struggled over the decades with the insurmountable love-hate relationship we hold with the Middle East. You have parts of the Middle East that love Americans and turn towards us for help and guidance with their governments. Then you have parts of the Middle East such as Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan in which we still struggle to make common ground. "America was not the same country in 2001 as it was in 1945, but Americans thought it was, so frozen was their conception of reality in those myth-production years. The contemporary occupations would instead become temporary containment strategies for chaos, market economies for occupation, a dream factory of empire. Later, a foreign friend observed harshly that perhaps ISIS went after journalists because during the war on terror, journalists had become associated with that vast infrastructure of the American military (Hansen, 200)." Being an African American at a young, adolescent age having gained my historical background knowledge from my family, I would giggle at circumstances such as the September 11 attack, not fully understanding what it meant as an American at a time when our family had just been allowed to even be considered humans. So many changes have occurred over the last century leaving everyone in a state of confusion. "Make America great again" is a derogatory statement, indicating we were once great, oblivious to the fact that there are significant number of issues resuming within our country that need to be solved for us to be great. When your mom can vividly describe having 'white only' and 'colored only' signs in her hometown, being removed from education because of her skin color, yet witness the first artificial intelligent flying car invented all within the same lifetime, how "great" has America been? Modernization comes at a great price of erasing the truth and shining a light on the insignificant topics that do not makes us a better country to begin with. Sure, it's cool to have all these technological advancements such as a self-driving car or an artificial intelligent robot walking around your house but is it an attempt to hide where we actually stand on this American timeline? Citizens can feel the fabricated election which is why we are kept in a state of confusion which Donald Trump is taking advantage of, imposing "Project 2025" on Americans.

One can only hope to become an elected official themselves to make sense of all this. Officials are the only ones with the power to make circumstances better for their communities. African Americans were forced to watch ourselves be degraded for centuries with little hope for a better future. It makes making decisions that are best for everyone harder when the previous elected officials before us have not done so or have done so with modesty. I'm a strong advocate for Obama's social reform, inventing Obamacare for those people Suzy Hansen mentioned down in Mississippi. Claudia Cox stated "That's because poverty in America doesn't look like what y'all think. It used to be bare feet, now it's Nikes. If I miss two months of work because I get sick, well, guess what? I'm in poverty. This is the new poverty. You don't know (Hansen,246)." I'm convinced that we will someday have an open border where we won't have to worry about unwanted criminals passing through our borders with the use of background checks and advanced border control officers. Countries in the Middle East either look up to us to help them economically or they dislike us because we have caused too much damage to their country with missiles and bombs. From my standpoint, the Middle Eastern countries that we have issues with wants the freedom to build their style of government without United States intervention. The Middle Eastern countries that love Americans may be willing to try that, but they keep strong ties with the U.S. in case the Islamic republic the Middle East wants so bad, fails. For them, getting a style of government that works for them is modernization. Modernization to the U.S. is a flying car, an AI robot, VR headsets, and utilizing all other forms of consumable energy such as wind, solar, and hydro power which most underdeveloped countries do not have yet when they are just fighting for clean water, clean food, and healthcare. We are all humans here. How developed of a country we are or how underdeveloped another country is does not have a direct impact on how we need to help and care for one another. It is everyone's obligation to help everyone, not just a specific people when it's convenient for them.