October 11, 2016
Tragedy strikes again.
And again.
Gunfire. Knives. Flight. Fight.
People die and people lament. Words of hate and bigotry spew forth from mouths faster than the brains controlling those tongues know what to make of it all.
Deport. Ban. Burn. Hate.
Hate. It comes so easily. When we don’t know what something is, we fear it. That fear brews within us hatred far faster than anything else can. And when you hate something, you want to see it destroyed or dead. Everyday, this sort of fear-induced anger clouds our judgement and distances us from our own heart. It leads us to look for someone or someones to protect us, which lets that person or persons to chip away at the bedrock of what makes America “great”.
We pride ourselves as Americans, on being the “Land of the Free” or “The Free-ist Country in the World”. However, do we really have freedom? Everyone is assumed to be carrying weapons or explosives in airports. We can’t marry more than one person at a time, we apparently can’t go to the bathroom without answering twenty (20) questions or stripping naked. And now we need to worry about whether our children and ourselves are safe in once safe environs like schools, theaters, and dance clubs.
We have let the terrorists win. We’ve let fear take control. As FDR said in a speech to Congress, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” Yet, now we fear being afraid.
Half of our country lives with some level of fear of the other half. Which halves am I referring to? Take your pick. Women fearing men. Blacks fearing whites. Whites fearing everyone else. When did all this fear come about? Or maybe, just maybe, it’s always been here lurking all around us since the beginning.
America was born out of fear. Fear, frustration, and anger at not having adequate representation back in England. Our Constitution was born out of fear that the weak central government initially created after the success of the American Revolution would lead to the 13 former colonies breaking up into seperate countries. Or worse, being reconquered by England. For too many decades, America feared its own percieved inadequacies. Feared not being great enough, not controlling enough of the continent, not being able to do this or that. Yet people came to this country because the fear of the unknown that America was to the rest of the world was not nearly as great as their fear of a future, or lack there of, in their own home country. Those people came and struggled and built this country. Generation by generation, hatred and greed hand-in-hand with dreams and desires for a better future for not just themselves, but their children and grandchildren.
Yet today, America stands before a cracked mirror. We seem to look at ourselves and see the pieces or parts, but not the whole. Those born in this country see newcomers as a threat to jobs, homes, and resources which are perceived as ‘ours’, not ‘theirs’. Yet each generation forgets that the previous generation had the same attitude about some other group of immigrants. Today’s Muslims were yesterday’s Mexicans who were once Vietnamese, Jews, Irish, Italian, Chinese, Germans, and so many others. The cracks in the mirror seem to separate us. Divide the country into native-borns versus immigrants; rich versus poor; blacks versus whites; Christians versus Muslims. Name any group and you’ll have at least one other group they pit themselves against. Why do we see the “African” in African-Americans, or the “Muslim” in Muslim-Americans? Each of us should be seeing and saying “Americans.”
You want to “make” America “great” again? Then remember what you and your neighbor are: American. To describe yourself as anything else is to see only a piece of the mirror. Look at the image shown in the whole mirror. And remember these words inscribed on the base of the Statue of Liberty: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
If you want to make America great again, reopen that golden door.
A Minotaur's Musings 