California Governor Peter Hardeman Burnett
“That a war of extermination will continue to be waged between the races until the Indian race becomes extinct must be expected. While we cannot anticipate this result, but with painful regret, the inevitable destiny of the race is beyond the power or wisdom of man to avert.” This statement is cited as part of the broader, genocidal policies pursued by Burnett during his governorship. He signed the “Act for the Government and Protection of Indians” in 1850, which enabled the forced removal and effective enslavement of Native Californians.
Decades after his most potent works were written, the words of Gil Scott-Heron feel less like historical artifacts and more like dispatches from a future he had already foreseen. The “Winter in America” he sang about in 1974—a season of political disillusionment, racial tension, and national malaise—has returned with a vengeance, manifesting in the polarized and profoundly disquieting landscape of the present day. To read his poetry and listen to his music in 2025 is to confront a sobering reality: the struggles he chronicled have not been overcome, but rather have morphed and intensified, finding a chilling new echo in the political climate of the second Trump presidency. 
