Let me tell you what I saw: Elon Musk, richer than God and far more arrogant, jerks his arm up at the Trump inauguration. Palm flat. Stiff. Textbook fascist salute. Then he does it again, turning to smirk at the cameras in back of him. Was it a joke? A threat? Doesn’t matter. What matters is this: when my racist boss called me “special,” he needed to believe I was an exception. Musk’s salute says the same thing. “You’re all exceptions now. Bow or burn!”
The Day My Boss Learned I Wasn’t “Special”
Remember when I told you about that white manager who called me smart “for a Black man”? He needed me to be rare. A unicorn. Because if I weren’t, his whole worldview—the hierarchy where he sat comfortably atop as a white Italian—would crumble. Musk’s salute? Same logic. Neo-Nazis cheer him because he’s their unicorn: a billionaire cosplaying their ideology, making hate feel legitimate.
But here’s the kicker: The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) called it a “misunderstanding.” Sound familiar? Like when HR told me my white colleague’s “shut the fuck up” rant was “just stress.” Gaslighting 101.
Trump, Musk, and the Smugness of Impunity
Let’s get real. Trump’s back, and he’s brought friends. Musk now runs something called the “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE). Cute name. Cuter agenda: handing Musk’s companies $12 billion in contracts while slashing food stamps. You know what this reminds me of? The Catholic Church’s Doctrine of Discovery—rewriting rules to steal land, then calling it “efficiency.”
Trump once bragged he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue. Now? He has pardoned the January 6 terrorists. There were no consequences for attempting to overthrow elections because a group of extremist rebel groups did not like the results. Just like my old boss, who called me “articulate” while promoting less-qualified white men to positions of authority.
Why History Repeats (And Why We Let It)
I wrote about this in Economic Racism. Colonizers didn’t just invent racism—they monetized it. Enslavement. Land theft. Genocide. Cultural appropriation, aka theft. All dressed up as “God-ordained,” “merit-based,” and “progress.” Musk’s Mars colony? Same story. Billionaires hoard resources and call it “innovation,” while the rest of us fight for scraps.
When I confronted my Black boss about the white man’s behavior, he panicked. “Stop causing trouble!” he snapped. “If you don’t like how he speaks to you, leave!” Same energy as the media calling Musk’s salute “edgy” instead of evil. But here’s the truth John Lewis taught me: “Trouble is the price of survival.” These people, like the Nazis they emulate, want everyone they deem unworthy relegated to extinction or enslavement.
So What Do We Do?
Three rules from a “nonconformist”:
1. Name their game. When Musk salutes, call a spade a spade. Say and write everywhere that he is “fascist.” When Trump pardons bigots, say “coup.” He incited a coup d’etat, not a riot. Call a spade a spade. Don’t attempt to soften it when you speak or write. That’s what the media (which they own) does. That softening keeps us calm and complacent, not realizing we are slowly being boiled to death and enslavement in an autocratic soup.
2. Hit their pockets. Boycott Tesla? Cancel X subscriptions? Make loyalty to hate expensive.
3. Build anyway. My book started as therapy. Your resistance starts where you are—blogs, boycotts, churches, family diners, friend lunches, screaming at school board meetings.
