This Is Who We Are: The Myth of American Innocence

Every time America does something cruel, violent, or inhumane, someone says, “This isn’t who we are.” But what if it is? In this episode, we confront America’s favorite myth: its innocence. With empathy and fire, we unpack the stories we tell ourselves to avoid accountability, from our founding lies to our modern denials. We tear down the illusion of moral exceptionalism and ask what most people are afraid of: what if the problem isn't a few bad apples — but the whole damn orchard? 

Healing doesn’t come from pretending — it comes from finally telling the truth. It’s not un-American to admit who we are. It’s the only way to become something better.

About your host:
Sonia in Cyber is a multicultural feminist voice, creative entrepreneur, and unapologetic truth-teller. With roots in education, tech, and product marketing, she blends data with empathy, humor with heartbreak, to expose the cracks in America’s “normal.” Through her podcast Somebody Pinch Me, she gives voice to the disillusioned, the outspoken, the overlooked, and the quietly furious — proving that truth doesn’t just survive in chaos; it thrives in it. Her mission is simple: to use her voice to inspire others to keep fighting, resisting, and moving forward — no matter what.

Transcript

@soniaincyber: 0:21

You ever watch the news, feel your stomach drop, and hear someone say, "this isn't who we are"? Yeah, me too. Only here's the thing. It is who we are. And the only way we stop being this is by finally telling the damn truth about it. This is Somebody Pinch Me. And today, "This Is Who We Are: The Myth of American Innocence". Let's get into it.

@soniaincyber: 0:45

Every time this country does something cruel, violent, or fascist, someone pops up to say it's un-American. Whether it's folks in cages, police kneeling on necks, mass voter suppression, or trans kids being banned from healthcare. You'll hear it again and again. This isn't us. This isn't who we are. But it is. America was built on stolen land with stolen labor under a stolen narrative. Slavery wasn't a detour. Genocide wasn't a mistake. Jim Crow wasn't an accident. And January 6th wasn't an exception. It was an inevitable symptom. After every school shooting, after every lynching by badge and baton, after every law that bans books but funds bombs, this isn't who we are. Lie. We are a nation built on graves and gospel, on liberty for some and law and order for the rest. The truth? This is exactly who we've been, until we choose to be different.

@soniaincyber: 1:50

We're taught from birth that America is the greatest country on earth. We pledge allegiance before we understand what allegiance means. We grow up thinking democracy is our birthright, but for most of us it's been a battle. And we believe we're exceptional even while people die from preventable illness and police bullets. You know what American exceptionalism really is? A distraction. It tells us we're better, so we don't ask if we're good. It tells us we're free, so we ignore how many of us aren't. It tells us we're normal, so we can't face our own cruelty. Exceptionalism is the myth that powers denial, and denial is how evil thrives. Land of the free? Unless you're queer, unless you're poor, unless you need an abortion, insulin, or truth. American exceptionalism isn't a belief, it's a business. It's a fairy tale we sell ourselves to avoid the horror story we are actually living. We're the good guys, they say. Meanwhile, billionaires buy the law, cops act as judge, jury, and executioner, protesters are called terrorists, but proud boys are called patriots. We love saying we're exceptional, but the numbers tell a different story.

@soniaincyber: 3:04

We waste more on health, yet Americans die younger. We overpay for education but lag in global performance. We have the tools, but our choices leave millions behind. This isn't a democracy or a great nation the whole world should look up to. It's a stage play, and we're way past intermission. When people say this isn't who we are, they're usually trying to comfort themselves. Because the alternative, admitting that America has always been capable of this, is painful. But that comfort has a cost. And if we keep pretending something isn't happening, we'll never do what's necessary to stop it. And that's the danger of the lie. It doesn't just fail to protect us, it protects the people doing the harm. While white moderates whisper, black mothers bury their sons. While churches pray for unity, trans kids are hunted out at schools. While liberals don't want to alienate voters, fascists are stacking courts, rigging maps, and rewriting history. This is what happens when comfort matters more than justice. The United States didn't become fascist overnight. It started with othering. It started with states' rights. It started with fear-mongering, with white grievance, with propaganda dressed as patriotism.

@soniaincyber: 4:20

We let cops get militarized. We let billionaires buy the courts. We let churches turn into cults. We normalized cruelty because it wasn't our kid in the cage. We rationalized fascism because it was wrapped in flags and Bibles. The truth is, America has always had the capacity for violence, racism, corruption, and control. And we let it thrive because so many people needed to believe we were better than that. We're not going to fix this by ignoring it. We're not going to vote harder our way out of fascism if we don't reckon with how we got here. We have to tell the truth, all of it. That white supremacy never ended. It just rebranded. That police violence isn't broken. It's functioning exactly as designed. That capitalism and cruelty have always held hands in this country. That the people most hurt by this nation are the ones most blamed for its problems. We can't heal what we won't name. And we can't build something better if we're still clinging to the comfort of innocence. We must admit and own that this country's violence isn't an anomaly, it's tradition.

@soniaincyber: 5:28

From genocide to slavery, from forced sterilizations to stolen children, from lynchings to mass incarceration, America's cruelty isn't hidden, it's historical. And here's some history for those of you who need that reminder. Over 12 million Africans were stolen from their homelands. Nearly 2 million died during the Middle Passage. America's wealth was built on the backs of enslaved people, producing over 75% of the world's cotton in the mid-1800s. Slavery was legally protected, including in the Constitution, via the Three-Fifths Clause and Fugitive Slave Act. During Reconstruction, there were brief black political gains, but followed by violent backlash in form of post-slavery white terrorism. Thousands of lynchings between 1877 and 1950, documented by the Equal Justice Initiative. The Ku Klux Klan, or KKK founded in 1865, terrorized Black Americans for over a century and still do. The Tulsa Massacre in 1921 solved white mobs destroying Black Wall Street, killing hundreds and displacing thousands without a single conviction.

@soniaincyber: 6:46

But let's go back even further than that. America was built on the violent displacement and genocide of indigenous peoples. The Indian Removal Act of 1830 forced 60,000 plus Native Americans off their land via the Trail of Tears. Thousands died from exposure, starvation, and disease. The Dawes Act of 1887 broke up tribal land to force assimilation, and 90 million acres were stolen and sold to white settlers. Native children were taken from their families and sent to government and church-run schools to kill the Indian, save the man. Abuse, neglect, and cultural annihilation were common. Many never returned. If you think atrocities like what you witness in historically based dramas today, like 1883, are just fiction, think again.

@soniaincyber: 7:33

And the cleansing and purifying of races isn't just something confined to Nazi Germany. Thousands of undesirables, often disabled, poor, or non-white women were forcibly sterilized across 32 states inspired by Nazi Germany. Hitler cited U.S. eugenics law in "Mein Kampf". And not to forget anti-Asian policies and efforts. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was the first law banning immigration based on race or nationality. And from 1942 to 1945, over 120,000 Japanese Americans, most of them U.S. citizens, were imprisoned in camps during World War II. No due process, no restitution for decades.

@soniaincyber: 8:16

And then there's more. The Jim Crow era saw legalized segregation in schools, housing, voting, and public life, used poll taxes, literacy tests, and violence to disenfranchise millions of black voters. And then from 1956 to 1971, the FBI launched covert operations to infiltrate, disrupt, and destroy civil rights movements. They surveilled and tried to sabotage Dr. King, Malcolm X, the Black Panthers, and even anti-war activists.

@soniaincyber: 8:43

Unfortunately, medical abuse and exploitation also occurred. From 1932 to 1972, black men in Alabama were denied treatment for syphilis by U.S. government doctors so they could study the disease's progression. In 1951, Henrietta Lacks' cancer cells were taken without consent and became the foundation of modern medicine, generating billions in biotech revenue while her family remained in poverty. And as we inch closer to recent decades, we have mass incarceration and the New Jim Crow era. Starting in 1970 to present, the war on drugs has been used as a tool for racial control. And here's the proof. The crack versus cocaine sentencing disparity still sits at 100 to 1 today. Black Americans make up 13% of the population, but over 30% of the prison population. And don't get me started on capital punishment, minimum sentencing, or the school-to-prison pipeline. And then another war is happening in the streets in our neighborhoods, modern-day policing, born from slave patrols and vigilante groups. It's no secret, police killings and brutality disproportionately harm black and brown people. George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Stephon Clark, Daunte Wright, and countless more. The only difference now is people cheer it on with hashtags and campaign signs.

@soniaincyber: 10:02

You can't meet fascism halfway. There is no middle ground between oppression and racism and freedom. But Democrats still trying to shake hands with a party sharpening knives, still playing checkers while the GOP lights the board on fire? Let's reach across the aisle, they say. The aisle is burning. The building is collapsing. And you're worried about bipartisanship? Spare me. We don't need centrism. We need courage. We need people who won't beg fascists to like them. We need people who will make fascists afraid again.

@soniaincyber: 10:36

You want to know who we are? Look at what we tolerate. Look at what we cheer for. Look at what we refuse to stop because it's happening to someone else. This is who we are until it isn't. Not because we say so, not because we wish it, but because we do the work to change it. We stop pretending. We get uncomfortable. We stand up, speak out, and refuse to let this version of America be the last.

@soniaincyber: 11:06

If we want to become who we say we are, it starts by facing who we've actually been with honesty, with accountability, with fire. When they say this isn't who we are, you say it is, but it doesn't have to be, because that's the power of truth, not just to hurt, but to wake us up. And we are long overdue.

@soniaincyber: 11:30

This is Somebody Pinch Me. It's time we admit the truth.