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.
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Episode Transcript
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 beingthis 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 (00:17):
undefined
Innocence".
Let's get into it.
Every time this country doessomething cruel, violent, or
fascist, someone pops up to sayit's un-American.
Whether it's folks in cages,police kneeling on necks, mass
voter suppression, or trans kidsbeing banned from healthcare.
(00:38):
You'll hear it again and again.
This isn't us.
This isn't who we are.
But it is.
America was built on stolenland with stolen labor under a
stolen narrative.
Slavery wasn't a detour.
Genocide wasn't a mistake.
Jim Crow wasn't an accident.
(00:58):
And January 6th wasn't anexception.
It was an inevitable symptom.
After every school shooting,after every lynching by badge
and baton, after every law thatbans books but funds bombs, this
isn't who we are.
Lie.
We are a nation built on gravesand gospel, on liberty for some
(01:20):
and law and order for the rest.
The truth?
This is exactly who we've been,until we choose to be
different.
We're taught from birth thatAmerica is the greatest country
on earth.
We pledge allegiance before weunderstand what allegiance
means.
We grow up thinking democracyis our birthright, but for most
(01:40):
of us it's been a battle.
And we believe we'reexceptional even while people
die from preventable illness andpolice bullets.
You know what Americanexceptionalism really is?
A distraction.
It tells us we're better, so wedon't ask if we're good.
It tells us we're free, so weignore how many of us aren't.
(02:00):
It tells us we're normal, so wecan't face our own cruelty.
Exceptionalism is the myth thatpowers denial, and denial is
how evil thrives.
Land of the free?
Unless you're queer, unlessyou're poor, unless you need an
abortion, insulin, or truth.
American exceptionalism isn't abelief, it's a business.
(02:21):
It's a fairy tale we sellourselves to avoid the horror
story we are actually living.
We're the good guys, they say.
Meanwhile, billionaires buy thelaw, cops act as judge, jury,
and executioner, protesters arecalled terrorists, but proud
boys are called patriots.
We love saying we'reexceptional, but the numbers
(02:41):
tell a different story.
We waste more on health, yetAmericans die younger.
We overpay for education butlag in global performance.
We have the tools, but ourchoices leave millions behind.
This isn't a democracy or agreat nation the whole world
should look up to.
It's a stage play, and we'reway past intermission.
(03:01):
When people say this isn't whowe are, they're usually trying
to comfort themselves.
Because the alternative,admitting that America has
always been capable of this, ispainful.
But that comfort has a cost.
And if we keep pretendingsomething isn't happening, we'll
never do what's necessary tostop it.
And that's the danger of thelie.
(03:22):
It doesn't just fail to protectus, 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 toalienate voters, fascists are
stacking courts, rigging maps,and rewriting history.
(03:43):
This is what happens whencomfort matters more than
justice.
The United States didn't becomefascist overnight.
It started with othering.
It started with states' rights.
It started with fear-mongering,with white grievance, with
propaganda dressed aspatriotism.
We let cops get militarized.
We let billionaires buy thecourts.
(04:04):
We let churches turn intocults.
We normalized cruelty becauseit wasn't our kid in the cage.
We rationalized fascism becauseit was wrapped in flags and
Bibles.
The truth is, America hasalways had the capacity for
violence, racism, corruption,and control.
And we let it thrive because somany people needed to believe
(04:25):
we were better than that.
We're not going to fix this byignoring it.
We're not going to vote harderour way out of fascism if we
don't reckon with how we gothere.
We have to tell the truth, allof it.
That white supremacy neverended.
It just rebranded.
That police violence isn'tbroken.
It's functioning exactly asdesigned.
(04:45):
That capitalism and crueltyhave always held hands in this
country.
That the people most hurt bythis nation are the ones most
blamed for its problems.
We can't heal what we won'tname.
And we can't build somethingbetter if we're still clinging
to the comfort of innocence.
We must admit and own that thiscountry's violence isn't an
(05:06):
anomaly, it's tradition.
From genocide to slavery, fromforced sterilizations to stolen
children, from lynchings to massincarceration, America's
cruelty isn't hidden, it'shistorical.
And here's some history forthose of you who need that
reminder.
Over 12 million Africans werestolen from their homelands.
Nearly 2 million died duringthe Middle Passage.
(05:28):
America's wealth was built onthe backs of enslaved people,
producing over 75% of theworld's cotton in the mid-1800s.
Slavery was legally protected,including in the Constitution,
via the Three-Fifths Clause andFugitive Slave Act.
During Reconstruction, therewere brief black political
gains, but followed by violentbacklash in form of post-slavery
(05:50):
white terrorism.
Thousands of lynchings between1877 and 1950, documented by the
Equal Justice Initiative.
The Ku Klux Klan, or KKKfounded in 1865, terrorized
Black Americans for over acentury and still do.
The Tulsa Massacre in 1921solved white mobs destroying
Black Wall Street, killinghundreds and displacing
(06:13):
thousands without a singleconviction.
But let's go back even furtherthan that.
America was built on theviolent displacement and
genocide of indigenous peoples.
The Indian Removal Act of 1830forced 60,000 plus Native
Americans off their land via theTrail of Tears.
Thousands died from exposure,starvation, and disease.
(06:34):
The Dawes Act of 1887 broke uptribal land to force
assimilation, and 90 millionacres were stolen and sold to
white settlers.
Native children were taken fromtheir families and sent to
government and church-runschools to kill the Indian, save
the man.
Abuse, neglect, and culturalannihilation were common.
Many never returned.
(06:56):
If you think atrocities likewhat you witness in historically
based dramas today, like 1883,are just fiction, think again.
And the cleansing and purifyingof races isn't just something
confined to Nazi Germany.
Thousands of undesirables,often disabled, poor, or
non-white women were forciblysterilized across 32 states
(07:17):
inspired by Nazi Germany.
Hitler cited U.S.
eugenics law in "Mein Kampf".
And not to forget anti-Asianpolicies and efforts.
The Chinese Exclusion Act of1882 was the first law banning
immigration based on race ornationality.
And from 1942 to 1945, over120,000 Japanese Americans, most
(07:38):
of them U.S.
citizens, were imprisoned incamps during World War II.
No due process, no restitutionfor decades.
And then there's more.
The Jim Crow era saw legalizedsegregation in schools, housing,
voting, and public life, usedpoll taxes, literacy tests, and
violence to disenfranchisemillions of black voters.
And then from 1956 to 1971, theFBI launched covert operations
(08:03):
to infiltrate, disrupt, anddestroy civil rights movements.
They surveilled and tried tosabotage Dr.
King, Malcolm X, the BlackPanthers, and even anti-war
activists.
Unfortunately, medical abuse andexploitation also occurred.
From 1932 to 1972, black men inAlabama were denied treatment
for syphilis by U.S.
(08:23):
government doctors so theycould study the disease's
progression.
In 1951, Henrietta Lacks'cancer cells were taken without
consent and became thefoundation of modern medicine,
generating billions in biotechrevenue while her family
remained in poverty.
And as we inch closer to recentdecades, we have mass
incarceration and the New JimCrow era.
(08:45):
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 cocainesentencing disparity still sits
at 100 to 1 today.
Black Americans make up 13% ofthe population, but over 30% of
the prison population.
And don't get me started oncapital punishment, minimum
(09:06):
sentencing, or theschool-to-prison pipeline.
And then another war ishappening in the streets in our
neighborhoods, modern-daypolicing, born from slave
patrols and vigilante groups.
It's no secret, police killingsand brutality
disproportionately harm blackand brown people.
George Floyd, Breonna Taylor,Stephon Clark, Daunte Wright,
and countless more.
(09:26):
The only difference now ispeople cheer it on with hashtags
and campaign signs.
You can't meet fascism halfway.
There is no middle groundbetween oppression and racism
and freedom.
But Democrats still trying toshake hands with a party
sharpening knives, still playingcheckers while the GOP lights
the board on fire?
(09:47):
Let's reach across the aisle,they say.
The aisle is burning.
The building is collapsing.
And you're worried aboutbipartisanship?
Spare me.
We don't need centrism.
We need courage.
We need people who won't begfascists to like them.
We need people who will makefascists afraid again.
You want to know who we are?
(10:07):
Look at what we tolerate.
Look at what we cheer for.
Look at what we refuse to stopbecause it's happening to
someone else.
This is who we are until itisn't.
Not because we say so, notbecause we wish it, but because
we do the work to change it.
We stop pretending.
(10:28):
We get uncomfortable.
We stand up, speak out, andrefuse to let this version of
America be the last.
If we want to become who we saywe are, it starts by facing who
we've actually been withhonesty, with accountability,
with fire.
When they say this isn't who weare, you say it is, but it
(10:51):
doesn't have to be, becausethat's the power of truth, not
just to hurt, but to wake us up.
And we are long overdue.
This is Somebody Pinch Me.
It's time we admit the truth.
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