Say it with me: This is not who we are. We are better than this. Say it again. We should all say it.
OK, first of all, the disclaimer. Of course we are not better than this. Of course this is who we are.
The list seems endless: slavery, Jim Crow, government-supported systemic racism – in housing, in policing, in education. The genocides and forcible removals of Native Americans from their land and abandonment of their health and wellbeing. Their children taken away to brutal Indian schools where they were stripped of their cultures. Guatemalan children kidnapped and caged. American children of Japanese descent imprisoned in concentration camps. Gross income and wealth inequalities. Farm workers – Filipino, Mexican, Central American – toiling in the fields with their children nearby, none protected from sun or toxic chemicals, for below our disgracefully low minimum wage. The murders of transwomen, the beatings of gay men, the ignoring of AIDS. The exclusion of women from the right to vote or to have any say in their reproductive lives. The Muslim ban. I’m sure you can add to the list.
BUT we are also the country that gave Reconstruction a try. That passed the Civil Rights Act. We’re the country that once excoriated and excluded Jewish, Italian and Irish immigrants, whose descendants are now indistinguishable from other Americans. We’re the country that elected a Black man raised by his European-American family to be president, that elected a Black woman raised by her South Asian mother to be vice-president and that will someday elect a Black person raised in a Black family to high office. We’re the country with two blended families as our elected leaders. We’re a country with marriage equality. We’re a country with an independent free press. We’re a country where a Jew, an atheist, a Christian, a Hindu, a Humanist, a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Wiccan can be elected to office. We’re a country that used to consider women the property of the men in their families – first their fathers and then their husbands – a country where until just under 50 years ago, married women couldn’t get their own credit cards. Now a woman can head the U.S. Treasury.
So, yes, we have flaws, plenty of them – serious but not, I believe, necessarily fatal. And yes, we have triumphs of justice and equality. But we need to emphasize the latter – and here’s why:
When a child fails at something or does something mean or careless, you know what happens if you say, “You’re a bad person. You’re a failure. You’ll never be any good.” The kid believes you. The kid believes that s/he’s bad, a failure. The kid knows it’s not worth even trying to be good. So s/he doesn’t.
Instead, good parents use a technique known as the “ego appeal.” You say to your kid, “You’re not the kind of person who hits.” You say, “You really try hard – that’s a great quality.” You say, “Your practicing is really paying off.” Then that’s what the kid believes. The kid believes s/he is not the kind of person who hits. The kid believes that it’s good to try hard and not give up. The kid believes improvement is possible.
And it’s not only for kids. It’s a well-known marketing technique (think “you’re worth it”) and marketers use it because it works. If it can make us buy stuff, it can make us buy ideas. And ideals.
So, tell America, “We’re not the kind of country that tolerates injustice.” Tell America “We’re the kind of country that treats people equally.” Tell America, “We’re better than that.” And then, maybe, we will be better than that.