Awakening of America

Arise and Shine or Slumber and fall?

The government shutdown isn’t the root, it’s a symptom. The reality is that America is at a crossroads. “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” - Jesus of Nazareth

Maybe the shutdown didn’t touch your home, but 700,000 Americans were impacted and their communities will feel the aftermath.

When did we stop caring about our neighbors?

Maybe you can absorb a 30% increase in your healthcare premiums - but millions cannot.

Maybe you can afford the rising cost of living - but over 60 million Americans are one paycheck away from experiencing homelessness.

Where do we go from here? Do we scroll past each headline as though disconnected from our own lives?

When do we admit that what we’re living through is bigger than politics or a political party? Or do we face the truth that the shaking around us is revealing who we really are and the expanse between who we must decide to become?

A Tale of Two Americas

We are living in two nations on the same land.

One insulated, the other invaded.

One profits, the other pays.

One feasts, the other fights to survive.

One dismantles, the other protests.

One tries to bury the past, one is still recovering from it.

In government, power is hoarded while millions go hungry.

In families, some sit secure while others ration meals.

In churches, pulpits grow more polarized.

In education, schools are unsafe, funding is being gutted.

In the economy, Wall Street soars as Main Street collapses.

In media, division and perversion pays, while truth and peace is buried.

In arts and culture, despair is mass-produced while hope is muzzled.

In technology, Ai is knocking on humanity’s door, while regulators sleep and fail to install guardrails.

This is the tale of two Americas. And the gulf between them is widening. And, it doesn’t matter if we put a new slogan on it, the same wicked system is at the helm - Pillaging to feed the ravenous and unquenchable desires of greed at the expense of decency, democracy, humanity and hope.

On Your Backs

When I beat my husband in dominoes (usually reserved for vacation), when I’m preparing to deliver the game-winning blow, it’s become a family tradition to exclaim: “On your backs!”

That’s exactly the phrase I hear playing in my mind when a new revelatory smoking gun or art of war strategy is revealed in the latest news cycle - at this point, it’s hard to keep up. Just this week, someone wrote on Threads: “How come you all didn’t sound the alarm about Project 2025?” 

My first thought: Where have you been?

But reality is both sobering and humbling. The truth is, this person could have been anywhere. Working two jobs. Raising kids. Trying to survive. Exhaustion and survival is usually the root of apathy for those fighting to make ends meet.

The tale of two Americas - One in a persistent battle against poverty and systemic inequality, and the other living in a bubble, blinded and numbed by privilege, which maligns perspective and perception.

Yet we’re here. And consider the alarm - sounded. If the watchmen sleep, the walls fall. If wisdom fails to cry aloud, the people perish. And there certainly will not be blood on these hands.

Fast Fascism

Fascism doesn’t arrive like a nuclear bomb (yes, I said the other “n”-word). It slips in quietly like a highly trained navy seal.

Fascism thrives in political division, with the scapegoating of the vulnerable, a perverse design to rewrite history and hide the truth. It invades its own cities, treating citizens as enemies to control, instead of people to serve. Communities become places to occupy instead of cultivate. Schools become places to penalize instead of protect. Prisons become pinnacles of profit instead of rehabilitation.

Awake, America

Every mountain of society is trembling. The question is whether we will sleep through the shaking or rise to rebuild.

Leaders must arise and govern with justice. The political mirroring and petty clapbacks may gratify for a moment, but the reality is, no one wins when the nation is at war - with itself.

And the Church really is owed it’s own letter. But in short, the church must arise and reset. Regain its identity and rediscover its authority, dominion, boldness, conviction and above all else, love.

Wickedness thieves in silence, ignorance, and complacency. I invite and indict the same voices that cried out and condemned people for their response (or lack thereof) for Charlie Kirk’s assassination should be crying out with the same intensity, at least, to defend the widow, the fatherless, the poor. The real gospel.

It’s unbelievable that America’s cities are now invaded and occupied by federal law enforcement, holding humans in detention facilities - 90% of which are run by for-profit companies. Sadly, this isn’t America’s first rodeo. We have seen this before in the American auction blocks enslaving kidnapped Africans. Japanese internment camps. Native American genocide and boarding schools, and in the mass incarceration of Black and brown communities under the government proliferated “War on Drugs.”

The playbook is recycled: profit off human suffering, normalize state-sponsored oppression, and then call it justice “for all”. One thing about America, she’s consistent.

The shaking is here. The alarm is sounding. The awakening is our choice. The time is now.

2020 was a tremor and a warning drill. This is the real thing. Back then, the world shut down and we were given the God-graced opportunity to slow down, to consider our ways, to reconnect with our Creator and heal our land. Instead, many numbed themselves with distractions. Redecorating everything but the condition of our hearts.

Now the mercy of warning has passed. America must decide: will we arise and uphold justice, equity, and truth—or yield to an invasion of fascism designed to create a crisis that benefits a few and attempts to transform America into a monarchy.

The walls of our nation are imploding. Families are on edge, cities under siege, our schools are unsafe for our kids and uncertainty is the air we breathe. While stock markets soar for the few, children are experiencing hunger, homelessness and many are grappling with hopelessness of an uncertain future.

Americans will have to decide whether we’ll wake up, fight for justice, or whether we’ll yield to an invasion of facism, masked by fantasy, in an effort to force America into a time-machine back to a place that never really existed - at least not for the majority of Americans.

This is not an isolated crisis. It is part of a divine shaking across every mountain of society, for such a time as this.

Awake, Church: Speak truth, defend the poor, roar with prophetic boldness.

Awake, Families: Raise children in covenant identity, not cultural confusion.

Awake, Leaders: Govern with courage and conviction.

Awake, Creators: Flood culture with light, not darkness.

Awake, Citizens: Refuse to settle for dysfunction—demand righteousness.

America is being shaped in this hour, not by what we say we believe, but how we choose to act. We must choose who and what we will serve. Either we will bow to dysfunction, greed, and destruction or we will arise in truth, love, boldness and fierce conviction.

The question is not whether America is being shaken. The question is whether we will awaken?

With TRUTH + LOVE,

Aja

Aja Brown is a visionary, strategist, urban developer, gov-tech executive, wife (bestie), and girl-mom, and the two-term Mayor of Compton, first elected at 31. Known for shattering paradigms and sharing her 12-point Vision for Compton, a cultural compass and clarion call, ushering a new historic wave of young leaders and female mayors across America. Aja’s known for her authentic, faith-driven leadership style, marked by bold truth, love, and high impact. 

Learn more at ajabrown.com