What it means to be an American after 9/11

I need to explain the title to this one because it has been kind of a journey.

It started when I posted an article about the VA scandal. It drew some comments, but one was particularly weird. It referenced an obscure philosopher and didn't actually seem to relate to the post or any of the comments.

My first thought was to ignore it, but there was one line in there about "what it means to be an American after 9/11" and that worked on me. It better mean the same thing now that it did before. I finally had to go back and respond to it, and it had disappeared. I suspect the reason it didn't make sense in context was that he had actually written on the wrong post, which can be easy to do, and then realized it. That made it all look less crazy, which was a good thing. Still, we needed to not have that attack change us.

Except of course that I was working on my Black History Month reading, and now am reading a book that covers prejudice against Chinese immigrants, and the history of U.S. involvement in Hawaii, and okay, actually we do need to change, but not that way. We need to change so we actually live by our values.

"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."

That's where we began. It continues with Indians not counting and slavery written into the Constitution, Mormons being driven from Missouri and Illinois, persecution of the Chinese, slavery ending and being replaced with Jim Crow, lots of broken treaties, Plessy v. Ferguson, the Exclusion Act, internment camps, the Patriot Act, Citizens United, and lots more - I know I'm leaving things out.

Compassion happens and courage happens and many beautiful things. I realize that too. We have our good parts. Nothing will make us lose that more surely than constantly finding ways to justify why some animals are more equal than others.

Values like Liberty and Equality are high aspirations; maybe it's not that surprising that we have failed so regularly. Ignoring the ugly spots won't fix that. We need to face them unflinchingly and then correct. I don't think we can do that without caring about people.

It can't be only caring about people who have jobs or people who are wealthy - some of the wealthy people accrued that wealth in jobs that sunk the economy. It can't be only caring about people who have never served jail time - not after the War on Drugs and the way that has been waged. It can't be only caring about white people, regardless of which code words you use to avoid saying that it is only white people.

I am going to try and unpack the different things in my head over the next few weeks, but they will all kind of circle back to this. The more you dehumanize others, the more you lose your own humanity, and why would you think that it could be any other way?

"O, yes,

I say it plain,

America never was America to me,

And yet I swear this oath---

America will be!"

-- Langston Hughes, Let America Be America Again