At This Moment I Am Deeply Ashamed to Be an American

I’m writing this with tears streaming down my face. Yesterday, 123 countries stood together at the United Nations and declared the transatlantic slave trade “the gravest crime against humanity.” They called for reparations, for acknowledgment, for healing the wounds that still bleed in our world today.

The United States voted NO. And so did Argentina and Israel.

Let that sink in. Our country, built on the backs of enslaved people—whose wealth came from stolen bodies, stolen labor, stolen lives—refused to call slavery what it was: the worst thing human beings have ever done to each other.

I’ve been on a painful journey of awakening to the horrors and atrocities that have happened in this country. Learning the true history of this nation. Not the sanitized version we were taught in school, but the raw, brutal truth. And I’m devastated.

For my entire life, I knew slavery was horrifically wrong. But I didn’t understand the DEPTH of it. The systematic torture. The generations of trauma. The fact that this country was DESIGNED around exploitation and still operates that way today.

And now, when the entire world is finally ready to face this truth, to name it, to begin the work of repair—and America says no. Oh, the Rage I feel. The deep guttural Sorrow.

As a spiritual teacher, I cannot be silent about this.

Spiritual awakening means facing the shadow. It means looking at what we don’t want to see. It means sitting with the discomfort of knowing our country, OUR country, was built on genocide and trafficking of Indigenous peoples and enslavement of Africans. And that these systems never actually ended. They just evolved. Right now, our Latino brothers and sisters are being terrorized. Families torn apart. Children traumatized. The same playbook of dehumanization, just with different targets.

This is not just political. This is SPIRITUAL WAR!

We cannot love the light while ignoring the darkness. We cannot claim to be awakening while our siblings suffer under systems we benefit from.

The world is changing. Consciousness is rising.

And we have a choice:

Do we join the healing? Or do we protect the wound?

I choose healing. I choose truth. I choose standing with those who have been harmed, even when—especially when—it’s uncomfortable. I choose to use my platform to speak.

If this makes you uncomfortable, sit with that. Ask yourself why. Your discomfort is information.

The truth will set us free. But first, it will break our hearts and make us fall to the floor. And that breaking? That’s where transformation begins.

With love and grief and holy rage,
Mama Tiff