Who America Says It Is and Who America Really Is....

“There have always been two Americas — the one we aspire to, a place of idealism and revolution and freedom. And then there’s the other America, the one we actually live in. The disconnect between those two ideas has rarely been clearer than in this tumultuous spring….”

--Jennifer Finney Boylan, New York Times, June 2020

There is who I am. There is who I hope to be.  There is the gulf between the two.

Me—I want to be compassionate towards those who are hurting. I want to be generous with my money, share a goodly portion with those who have little or none. I want to treat others as I want to be treated. I want to judge less and accept more, listen more and talk less.  I want to see the best in others and myself.

And yet…

I sometimes turn away from those who are hurting or worse, I blame them for their suffering. I hold on to my money so tightly, and when I do give, it is often from the leftovers.  I treat others at times, with contempt, or worse, apathy.  I see how others live their lives, differently than I live my life and I wonder, “Why can’t they just be more like me!”  I open my mouth and opine whenever a thought pops into my head, leaving little or no space for another to speak. I can easily view the stranger with suspicion, not trust.

Who I want to be. Who I really am.

This is the eternal tension of our shared human condition: facing into the truth of who we really are versus the hope of who we might be—as children of God and neighbors and citizens and family members.  This is the moral reckoning our nation is being challenged to look at and face into and confess to: who we are as a nation right now, in 2020, versus who we think ourselves to be, hope ourselves to be.

The problem is not the lofty ideals and dreams we as Americans set forth for ourselves in our founding documents. We have and we do dream great dreams of being a nation of justice and opportunity and equal treatment under the law and individual dignity. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

The problem is that for many folks in our land, especially folks of color, they read these words and then rightly wonder if those civic guarantees really apply to all the people. All of us. No one left out or left behind. They wonder, like I do, if perhaps there should be an asterisk at the end of that sentence in the Declaration of Independence and a disclaimer: some restrictions may apply.

And so the protestors in the streets are really doing the United States a great service right now: they are reminding us that as a republic founded almost 244 years ago, we must still dare to imagine that we can be a land of peace and justice, of racial reconciliation and care, of radical freedom for every last person who claims the title of citizen. The folks with the signs and the chants, who have been showing up in our cities and towns and villages, all colors, all political parties, all faiths, in all fifty states: their message to America is clear.

Be who you say you are, really be a nation that is actually a shining city upon a hill, an example to the rest of the world of how democracy is supposed to work. Be your words. Be freedom. Be justice. Be liberty. Be faithful dissent. Be courageous in defending the rights of the minority. Be an exemplar on the world stage and not just a bully. Be a land of mercy and not revenge, wisdom and not bluster.  Be a land where the people and not the plutocrats or the professional politicians, or the king wannabees, rule the land.

Don’t just fly a flag in front of your house or sport a red white and blue lapel pin and mumble through the national anthem at a ball game and imagine that this is all one has to do to be a real patriot. No.

Instead, be a real citizen: active and engaged. And in the weeks and months ahead, sit down with your neighbors, especially the neighbors who are aggrieved and hurting, who are angry and sad, and who wonder why they were left out of the “American Dream” and then just listen to them.  Listen.  Don’t get defensive. Don’t make excuses. Don’t walk away.  Open your ears and your hearts and close your mouths and hear, with compassion, the stories of what is like to live in the other America.

I know that I have a lot of listening to do in the times to come.  We all do.

There is who are, America. There is who our highest ideals demand that we become. 

God help us to get there.

                 

                 

When You View Another Person As An "It", Racism Flourishes

“How is it that you can love the Creator but hate what He created?”   –Carlos Wallace

How?!

How could one human being put their knee down upon the neck of another human being, and then push with so much weight and strength, and then not move from that position for eight minutes and forty nine seconds?  Even as that fellow child of God was already immobilized by handcuffs, was already face down on the ground.  Even as the petty crime the man was accused of was passing a counterfeit $20 bill.

How could three other human beings, folks in authority, watch as that fellow police officer continued to crush a person’s throat, cut off his air supply, even as George Floyd cried out: “I can’t breathe! My neck hurts! Everything hurts! Water or something, please! I can’t breathe.”  Floyd became unresponsive and after being transported by ambulance to the hospital, was pronounced dead later that evening, presumably from asphyxiation. 

How does that kind of cruelty, wanton abuse of power, institutionally sanctioned violence, continue as the norm far too often in how folks of color are treated by police officers, by the people who are supposed to be sworn to serve and to protect the public, and to keep the peace? How, even in the very rare instances when criminal charges are brought, is it almost unheard of for any law enforcement official to spend any time in jail for such crimes?  How do grand juries choose not to indict? How do juries vote to acquit? 

How?

Well, if you treat another being not as a subject, not as an equal, not as a neighbor, not as a child of God just like you, deserving dignity, mercy and respect; if you treat someone, instead, as an object, as an “it”, then it is not so hard to hurt them.  To hate them. To stereotype them. To condemn them, and yes, to kill them.  Because they are an “it”, a thing, and when we turn a real flesh and blood person into an object, they become “less than” in our eyes.

Less than human.

In the 1923 book “I and Thou”, the Jewish Philosopher Martin Buber described two kinds of relationships in this world. The first is “I-thou”. 

When we see another as a thou, we see them as a subject, as having personhood, as being worthy, as being just as loved by God as anyone else. When we relate to another as a “thou” we have empathy, because in them, we see ourselves, we see common humanity. When we honor another as a “thou” we do all that we can to make our shared life good and just and whole and loving, recognizing that each of us breathes the same air, and walks the same streets and claims the same dreams for our own lives and the lives of those we love. When we see another as a “thou” we are humble enough to know that they have something to teach us.

But when we see another as an “it”?

We consciously and unconsciously deem their life as less worthy than our own. Then we are able to justify our disdain for that person because “they” are part of “them” and “those people” are always doing this or doing that and bringing it upon “themselves”.  And if only “they” would be more like us, then life would be better. When we see another human being as an object, we look down upon their culture and their history and their experience because it does not mirror our own, because the rest of the world is supposed to live just like we do, right? When we see another child of God as less than divinely created, we might even use our faith in God to justify rejection of that other person’s faith or religion, believing that if the other does not take our specific path to heaven, then clearly they are not deserving of salvation, or even God’s love.

To see the folks we share this world with as our brothers and sisters, as “thous”: people of all colors and many religions and many ways of expressing love and many amazingly diverse cultures or….

To see the folks we share this world with as a threat because they do not look like us or talk like us or live like us or worship like us or love like us and so it is our right to hold them back, hold them down, push them away, judge them as second class while we are first class….

What then will it be? 

Until the answer is “thou”, the world will continue to bleed, and choke, and be torn apart by the sin of seeing the other as an “it”.  George Floyd was thou. Of that I am absolutely sure.

God rest his soul.