Confronting America’s Current Crisis

The ability of American society to rely on care for its most vulnerable members is almost non-existent. The responsibility of societal care has fallen to friends, family, and community. Ironically, at a time when we need community most, we are drawn to isolation due to the increasing demands of work and life. Technology further enables this isolation.

In these past weeks and months, we have witnessed a full-scale attack on the people, programs, and organizations that have been the backbone of a degrading social safety net. Black, Asian, Indigenous, Hispanic, and other peoples who have been marginalized in the United States have been impacted disproportionately by these attacks. Of course, this is not news to those who are impacted. The struggle for equality is older than America [1].

That struggle is why we need to ask ourselves, “Is the America that we see in front of us the America that we want to be a part of? Does this America reflect our values of love, peace, respect, and justice?”

America has always had a veneer over its violent history, hiding the most broken parts of our system. The veneer is gone, and the walls of democracy are being reduced to rubble. This moment feels terrible for everyone, but it only surprises people who have lived with relative privilege in America. Now that it is gone, white Americans need to stop saying, “This isn’t America. This isn’t who we are.” History offers us so many examples that this is exactly who we are. We just don’t want to admit it.

The Dual Reality of American Experience

For some, America is as advertised: a job in the city, a house in the suburbs, kids who take music lessons and play sports. For most, America is a gauntlet. The job market determines our ability to access health care; wages are the same or less than they were ten years ago, but the economy is not. American families, who represent a multitude of global cultures, are being pummeled. Racist and sexist policies of this administration hit the majority of the American population literally and figuratively. Anyone who does not pass as white is at risk of being abducted by ICE, without any regard for the rights guaranteed by the Constitution.

We are living in a moment of urgency. Instead of learning from the cruel actions of our past, we see many trying to erase these moments instead. This is a moment where we need to stand up, reveal the truths that we see, and fight for marginalized people and the programs that have enabled their human rights to be supported thus far. Allies need to take risks. This is our moment to tell the truth and to do the work of reconciliation and repair.

My Personal Awakening to Truth

When I was a child, I believed in the promise of America. I believed that the Constitution and Bill of Rights were near-sacred representations of the American ideal. I believed that it was the land of the free, with the right to free speech, religion, and expression. As a white kid in a white town, I didn’t understand the simple truth that the rules apply differently based on skin color. I recognized economic injustice readily, as that was well within my experience, but I didn’t understand that, actually, racism was all around me subtly, doing its silent work to my brain.

Working with refugees, immigrants, and people of multiple nationalities and ethnicities as a public school teacher gave me the beginnings of insight into what life is actually like for anyone who is not white or white passing. I realized that these truths, combined with other forms of inequality (economic, gender, disability) compounded the difficulty of simply attempting to survive. Although it was really hard to admit, I realized that I was raised to be racist. But I also knew that I wanted something better for the world and the people I care about.

The Choice Before Us: Reconciliation or Division

The choice before us is actually simple. We must acknowledge the grave injustices happening all around us, and our complicity where and how it has existed. Then, we need to make a plan for change, to do the work to save American ideals of “liberty and justice for all.”

I believe that attendance and participation levels at recent protests around the country [2] show that many people feel that these ideals are worth saving. If America is to live up to its potential, we need to build on the peaceful energy of the protests. We need to participate collectively in amplifying the truth and work peacefully in the ways that we can as individuals and as a community to make the words “liberty and justice for all” ring true once again.

Taking Responsibility: The Path to Reconciliation

White Americans hold a special responsibility in this fight. We are not being hunted down, snatched out of our schools, offices, and churches. But our Black and Brown brothers and sisters are, simply because of their skin color or nation of origin. We must be willing to shoulder the responsibility of repairing a system that allowed any of this to happen in the first place. We must be willing to show up in all of the ways that we can, to acknowledge the truth of both the past and present, and to stand up to make necessary changes in these systems.

My Vision for Reconciled America

I want America to be a peaceful, non-violent country where we recognize that all people deserve dignity and humanity. I believe America can be a rich place for the exchange of ideas, precisely because American culture, art, and music can draw from the vast heritage of immigrants both recent and long past, indigenous peoples, enslaved peoples, and yes, the colonizers who repeated the oppression that they themselves experienced.

I want an America where nobody fears for their life, ever. Think about what that means: no losing health insurance in the middle of cancer treatments. No more kids who fear getting shot at school. No more police or military turning against the citizens they swore to protect. No more racial profiling. No more denying the dark parts of our history.

The Urgent Call to Action

Will the American people stand up to keep moving forward on the road where every single American has liberty and justice? Where Black, Brown, Indigenous, Asian, and Latino and Hispanic Americans can walk to the mailbox, make a wrong turn, get stopped for a traffic ticket, or sleep in their bed without fear of being murdered? 

That America will require us to engage now, to show up and support our vulnerable community members and acknowledge that we see how their humanity is being ripped away. To stand up when we see an injustice, even in a climate of oppression and fear. To take substantial risks that are equal to what we will lose if we do not continue to speak, fight, and support one another. We must live our values of truth and justice in order to reconcile the damage and hurt that has been caused to so many.

We can have an America with all the things that we desire: peace, liberty, humanity, and a culture of care. The “no kings” protests have revealed just how much we crave a return to a country where cruelty is not the point. We can reconcile these hurts and make the America that we live in now one that serves us all – a society that we can, in turn, feel happy to serve.

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[1] https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/assets/121013-humanrightsfacts.pdf

[2] https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-statement-2100-protests-take-place-nationwide