Jul 04, 2026 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

(Kaieteur News) – A country with a small population could unharness itself from the oppression of a superpower. American exceptionalism and ideals at its peak. Then, in the next exhalation of energy, insist that some humans must be reckoned only at the three-fifths mark. Liberty for one, slavery for another. The peculiar “odious institution” that is inseparably interwoven in the fabric of American Ugly and American ignominy. There could be an Abe Lincoln and the inspiration of Emancipation. Only for the dirty, greasy, rule of Jim Crow America to take hold after America’s costliest war. Costly in the blood of its children. Irreparable in the damage inflicted on the psyche of its offspring.

What to make of a country that’s generous with one hand, barbarous with the other? The Native Americans and their Trail of Tears, a president celebrated, and the ‘only good Indian is a dead Indian. From the removal of the yoke of taxation without representation to the usurpation of California, Arizona, and the Lone Star State from a neighbour. Sam Houston must have had an uncanny nose for oil. Beaumont, Spindletop and Permian; and the gushers that made America great. Emerged the Rockefeller Trust. Exxon should ring a bell. How to take measure of a country that can have sons like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison. And in its 250 years of existence spawn a Rough Rider, a preacher, and a cinematic cowpuncher for its leaders. From the son of a bootlegger in the White House, to this day with a dealmaker and impersonator resident.