As I mentioned in last week’s post, I would continue sharing things children and parents could be doing at times, such as these. In particular, I promised to provide suggestions for changes we can make in our behavior so that public lynchings like George Floyd and bottommost levels of civility modeled by people like Amy Cooper are no longer outward symptoms of our Nation’s sickness.
And now only a week later, hoping to have at least one week reprieve from inhumane madness, more disgusting examples of inhumanity flood the national airwaves. So it seems only appropriate that I begin with this admission. We are a sick nation.
We Sick
It would not be a stretch to say this Nation is so unwell that we may be on our death bed sick. We have a form of cancer so horrific it appears to be terminal.
Our national illness has its roots in our founder’s lack of humanity. And those cancerous roots have only grown more robust and more profound since our fore-parents’ uninvited and unwanted arrival on this foreign soil. If only the Indigenous people had the foresight to do what our Commander In Chief is doing today – build a wall.
Today, as evidence by constant and countless examples of social and political unrest, massive income and wealth inequality, declining public health and safety, and degrading pseudo-democratic principles, there is little doubt the U.S. is clearly on the verge of extinction. Yet our euthanization will not solely be the result of our inauspicious origin; we could readdress our wrongs if we so desired.
But we won’t! We are stubborn people who reject any form of revolutionary change. We are too reckless, oh so vain, and simply worship money far too much ever to do the right thing.
The Real National Pasttime
Instead, the most critical thing that puts this Nation on the precipice to soon end up like other past great empires is our love for fetishizing. The Pandemic makes it understandable in ways it was easier to ignore previously that our real national pastime is not baseball or any sport for that matter. Our national pastime is fetishizing the evils of a small minority.
We’re insanely preoccupied with obsessing over the glaring societal inequities without critically thinking about long-term domestic solutions. We are a nation of people so enamored with self that we cannot see the nuances to our problems nor how the answers we seek at home share an inseparable connection to declining humanity abroad.
Stop Fetishizing
Shortly after the 2016 Republican National Convention, I shared my thoughts on who would be the next President. Don’t worry, this is not a case of I told you so, but for the record, I did tell you so.
Moreover, this part is not my way of piling on the President. Even if there were room for me to pile on, I wouldn’t bother. There is little I could add about the President that would be noteworthy.
Instead, I want you to recall the 2016 Presidential Election because I shared then what I believed were symptoms of America’s illness. If you remember, I expected Donald Trump would be President because, unlike most, I did not consider Donald Trump an American anomaly. While others proclaimed his candidacy a joke, I knew he had a real chance to win because Donald Trump then, as he does now, very much reflects America.
And as much as Donald Trump is a mirror reflecting at us who we are, the same can be said about our current perpetrators of social injustice. Like the police who murdered George Floyd and no different than Amy Cooper, America is composed of a large contingency of narcissistic empathy barren people with short attention spans who have little to no intellectual ambition and who lack the willingness or interest to think through complex issues.
That was a mouthful, I know. And yes, I said it. Somebody had to say it.
The Eight Second Narcissist
Rather than pose challenging questions to ourselves, we prefer fetishizing the obvious. Instead of wasting time and energy on quickly and easily answered questions like, “does President Trump respect humanity?” What if we leaned into the moment looking intently in the mirror to examine our expressions of humanity?
I’d like to know if we believe it possible to consider multiple truths in the same way we try both unwisely and unsuccessfully to multitask our way through life? Or when it comes to examining others and ourselves, are we going to remain a people who would prefer fetishizing only the glaring failings of the worst of us? Are we capable of stating that many of our corporate and governmental leaders’ expression of humanity is pathetic and note in unison that our daily representations of humanity are also in need of immediate repair?
What I am asking us to consider should we have the ability to pay attention longer than the current human average of eight seconds – is it possible to contemplate two things at one time – if it’s possible for two things to be correct at once? Can we demand better of all the ‘powers that be’ and, at the same time, improve our relationships with nonhomogenous people? Is it possible to admit that Black Lives Matter and concurrently concede that we have done a historically poor job of making sure any American citizen, except a few who are wealthy and privileged, know that their lives mattered?
Chicken or the Egg
For any approaching the eight-second attention span mark, and are eager to twist my words, allow me to clarify that my position. Mine is not a question of the chicken or the egg. I would never assert that solving the ills of this Nation requires choosing who to offer full humanity first by selecting from the groups denied humanity the longest.
I am also not suggesting some quid pro quo requirement as in the Government and the ‘powers that be’ should be allowed to continue their standard operating procedure until ‘we the people’ behave righteously first. Nor am I inferring in any way that the misconduct of civil servants and public officials is ever justifiable.
However, I am asking you, moms and dads, all of us to look in the mirror to make sure we are not raising children whose inclination is fetishizing the failings of others without a willingness to also do some self-examination. I am asking us to bring up the kind of citizen this country desperately needs – intellectually ambitious, globally & culturally competent, and humanitarian driven people.
I am asking us to stop sitting, watching, waiting, complaining, and fetishizing about how those we have elected and those who pay our salaries continuously fail us. I am asking us to take a stand and be the kind of citizen this country needs. I am asking us to be today’s leaders and raise tomorrow’s leaders that will keep this Nation and planet from killing itself.
We need to start treating our sickness with or without help from the ‘powers that be”. Because as I stated earlier, without equivocation, any Nation that continues to deprive even one of its citizens their human rights and socioeconomic dignities manifests openly the signs of being gravely ill.
This Nation, our Nation, the so-called land of the free and home of the brave, is unwell. Your land, my land, from California, to the New York Island, from the Redwood Forest to the Gulf stream waters, this land is sick because of you and me.
The Complicated Ugly Truth
Thus, if we want this Nation to be better, we all must do better. If we want this planet to last for our children and our children’s children, we must be better. All must work independently and collectively to cure America’s illness so that America and the planet can be better.
And speaking of being better, let me share two things my friend S.K. inquired about that people who are humanitarian driven can do. First, I suggest taking a deep dive into the history of our Nation. To know where you are going, you must know where you are now and where you have been.
To think and speak critically about how to heal this Nation, we all must know more about our Nation’s history. And no, I am not just talking about the commercialized coopted Jamestown Virginia 1619 origin story.
I am talking about way back to our original sick and deprived 1492 fresh off the boat wealth and privilege-seeking warmongering beginnings. I’m talking about America’s truth, the whole ugly truth, and nothing but the complicated dreadful truth.
Second, we also have to look at our connectivity to other nations recognizing that when it comes to international issues, other people feel about America, as do many Black and Brown Americans feel about White Americans – a collection of fragile and privileged people. In many countries, the same discriminatory and inhumane treatment historically and geographically marginalized and underserved Americas fight against is enacted on Black, White, Red, Yellow, Brown, and poor people of other nations.
The perpetrators of those international crimes and atrocities are ‘we the people’ – Black, White, Red, Yellow, and Brown combined. If only guilty by taxpaying and right to vote association, the offenders include us folks protesting in the streets, pontificating in traditional and social media about the social inequities at home, and fetishizing over who but us is to blame for the Nation’s sickness.
Unbelievable? Hypocritical? Thoughtless? Narcissistic? I couldn’t agree more.
Can Two Things Be True?
So, let me ask again what I alluded to earlier. Can two things be right at the same time? Can the cries for justice and peace in this Nation be heard and addressed while also listening to and addressing the calls for justice and peace abroad?
Is it possible that elected officials and citizens can both fail a nation and a planet simultaneously? Is there a difference between when a police officer murders an innocent citizen in cold blood and the community rightfully expects that all connected parties will be held responsible from when an American drone murders innocent world citizens in cold blood and those world citizens who have lost loved ones expect all of America to be held accountable? Should the standard for humanity and the expression thereof ever be different when this Nation murders innocent world citizens?
Can there be justice and peace anywhere if there is not justice and peace everywhere? Is it possible for there to never be another senseless heinous murder in cities like Minneapolis, Atlanta, Baltimore, Ferguson, and Louisville, while also making sure there are no more senseless, horrific murders of innocent civilians in places like Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Somalia, and Yemen?
Do Better, Be Better
Does a White life matter more than a Black life? Certainly not! Do American lives matter more than foreign lives? Absolutely not! Are all human beings and human suffering inextricably connected? Without question!
So then it is time folks that you and me just simply do better for all humans. It is time ‘we the people’ just simply be better for all humanity.