The idea of America inspires the soul of humanity. To
proclaim that every person has as much value as any another and has the right
to express his or her thoughts freely, to worship as he or she chooses, and the
right to pursue “life, liberty, and happiness”[i]—those
are radical thoughts! Inspiring indeed, and so far-reaching that even the
people who first wrote them didn’t truly believe them. Well, SOME of us do. I’d
like to think many of us do.
The past few years have been dark days again for our
country. We’ve emerged from a terrible economic crisis only to find ourselves
on yet another battlefield—one which many of us hoped we we’d put behind us. We
had thought or at least hoped we’d moved beyond the worst expressions of hate
and bigotry only to find those monstrous specters rearing their ugly heads yet
again and with a power forged in desperation. We had fooled ourselves into
believing that the values America was founded upon were finally coming to full fruition,
and that true equality for all people, regardless of race, sex, or creed was
finally within reach. That dream, it would seem, has gone down to the echoes of
“Trump! Trump! Trump!” No, America is not the “Land of the Free and the Home of
the Brave”[ii],
as remembered from the familiar anthem. It is instead the land of the
disenfranchised, the morally weak, the fearful, and the hateful. We have
forgotten who we should be—who we never have been during our entire history as
a nation.
I awoke this morning from a dream which included two young
boys. Both of them were featured on NBC
Nightly News yesterday, and I confess I was once again moved to tears, as I
often have been in watching the struggles of the Syrian refugees or those of
the African-American community. What has happened to us that we would even
allow such things to happen without showing compassion and doing all we could?
What has happened to our moral compass that we would say we won’t even take ten
thousand of the millions of refugees from the Syrian war? That we would compare
them to “a bowl of poisoned Skittles[iii]?”
What has happened that our response to the daily murder of black people—many of
whom are just folks like ourselves, just trying to make it—is a “law and order”
candidate? One who, I might add, frequently doesn’t know what he’s talking
about and prides himself on his ignorance? I know what you’ll say. “What about
Somalia? Or Afghanistan? We tried to help and look at what it got us." Well, for one thing, all our meddling got us a huge share of responsibility for what has happened to all the Middle Easter refugees.
I think we all need to do a serious “check up from the neck
up!”[iv]
If we can’t regard our neighbors as rightful Americans who happen to look a
little different, talk a little different, or believe a little different than
we do, then we don’t deserve to live in this country—and it doesn’t matter if
they are here legally or not. If they are within the borders of our country,
they are entitled to all the protections in the Constitution of the United
States. That’s the law. We need to be more like six-year-old Alex who, when
seeing the photo of a fearfully injured and homeless Syrian boy of his own age,
was moved to compassion and sat down and wrote a letter to President
Obama: “Can
you please go get him and bring him to our home?” the letter read. “We will
give him a family and he will be our brother.”[v]
We don’t deserve the freedoms so
many of us DO enjoy, and we have certainly forgotten the vision of Lady
Liberty, the New Colossus. We should pause and remember the poem written for
her by Emma Lazarus which is engraved on a plaque at the monument. Here is an
excerpt:
"Keep, ancient
lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "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-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"[vi]
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"[vi]
[i]
From the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America. It is sad
to reflect that Thomas Jefferson, who penned those inspiring words never did
give up his slaves, nor did George Washington, our first President, whose
slaves were not freed until after his death as provided for in his will.
[ii] The
last line of The Star-Spangled Banner
by Francis Scott Key, our national anthem.
[iii] http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2016/09/20/donald-trump-jr-compares-syrian-refugees-poisoned-skittles/90722818/
[iv] “We all need a daily check up
from the neck up to avoid stinkin ‘thinkin’ which ultimately leads to hardening
of the attitudes.” ~ Zig Ziglar
[vii] Donald
Trump’s 2016 campaign slogan
