By Rev. Stacy Swimp, Word In Black
As a person of half-Nigerian heritage, I carry within me the Igbo philosophy that a person is only a person through their relationship with others. In this tradition, human dignity—Mmadụ—is not an individual possession but a communal bond; to insult one is to fracture the spirit of the whole.
As we celebrate Black History Month, this ancestral lens helps us discern when rhetoric is used to bypass the democratic and moral guardrails of our society.
Scholarly analysis indicates that modern authoritarianism often derives control through the strategic weaponization of words and the leverage of personal wealth to manufacture polarization. Within the current administration, we observe under Donald Trump a reliance on “intrigue” and the implementation of a “loyalty scorecard” for corporations to reshape the state into an instrument of personal gain rather than public service.
The manipulation of language and the influence of vast wealth serve as foundational tools for this authority. When leadership labels the press as the “enemy” or refers to political opponents as “vermin,” it initiates a process of “rhetorical dehumanization.” This is a profound assault on the Imago Dei—the principle that every person possesses inherent dignity as a reflection of the divine.
This shift was visceral here in Michigan on Jan. 13, 2026, when the president responded to a Ford plant worker’s criticism with profanity and an obscene gesture. When the White House subsequently defends such behavior as “appropriate” while the president’s personal net worth spikes through family-backed ventures, it signals that the “I-It” relationship—treating citizens as obstacles—has become the national standard.
This transition from rhetoric to policy is codified in directives such as “Operation Take Back America” and the use of the “White House Loyalty Scorecard” to rate companies based on political fealty. These moves have been critiqued for using “fearmongering” to justify broad expansions of executive authority while rewarding those within the president’s “outer circle.”
Psalm 94:20 warns of the “throne of iniquity… which frameth mischief by a law,” a warning echoed in Dr. King’s teaching that an unjust law is a code “out of harmony with the moral law.” When the state justifies the suspension of dissenters and replaces dignity with derision, it signals that moral guardrails are being demolished in favor of a transactional culture of greed and the very “triple evils” of militarism and materialism King warned against.
Dr. King famously warned that “hate is too great a burden to bear.” He understood that any governance founded on the systematic “othering” of human beings eventually leads to societal devastation and what he termed “spiritual homicide”—the slow, deliberate death of a nation’s conscience. To exercise discernment, we must be “fruit inspectors” of power (Matthew 7:16). King noted that “darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.”
By rooting ourselves in the knowledge that justice must uplift the human personality, we can refuse to let our story be written by the hand of hate, standing firm in the conviction that there are no “gradations” in the image of God.
Author Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are my own and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of my employer, Molina Healthcare of Michigan.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the writer and not necessarily those of the AFRO.
Photo by Markus Spiske: https://www.pexels.com/photo/a-boy-showing-his-fingers-3905819/
