I keep gnawing on this concept that the United States is more idea than geography. It is really important for us to pay attention to, to name, to remember and we just don’t pay the Idea of who are its due.
Think about it. The pilgrims, the slaves, the convicts, those fleeing famine and political unrest, those fleeing persecution ended up here. Why? It wasn’t to be with other British or Irish or Poles or Jews, Chinese or – well, you get the idea. Africans were enslaved and brought here against their will but ended up, however tragically, a part of the great experiment, the great idea.
Everyone who comes here comes from a place where their geography defines their history, nationality, worldview, and politics. Why do they come? Why do they leave home and hearth, generations of memories, and a world of shared experiences?
They come because of an idea. Or in the case of those who came against their will, they hope for the future because of an idea.
That’s who we are. We are an idea. An ever-expanding idea of justice, self-government, equality, and freedom. We often get it wrong. Mostly because of where we’ve come from or where we’ve been. We crave freedom and fear it at the same time. We lust after justice and worry that justice for others will diminish us. Not so much because we are bad but because we are human.
Well, some of us are bad. Some of us hate. Some of us live in fear. Some of us have made the United States about geography. Our idea is supposed to temper and guard against that. But that is NOT who we are.
We are Cajun and Irish, Italian and Jewish, Chinese and Vietnamese, Thai and Pilipino. We are English and German, French and African. Bangladeshi and Indian. We all came from a place (or our ancestors did) to an idea.
And we need to remind ourselves every day. Religious freedom, personal freedom, freedom of speech and expression. Self governance – the idea the world thought would fail (please don’t let it be this year that it does!). Equality. An idea that does not and cannot remain stagnant but that must be expanded every time it is challenged by people who are oppressed.
Black Lives Matter doesn’t just challenge the racism in this country, it challenges us to remember, buy into, and own the IDEA of who we claim to be as a nation.
We are based on some really, really good ideas. Our founding documents are sacred in their intent. It is often difficult to enter an idea with preconceptions and prejudices of the past, but not impossible. It is our task. Our work. Our future. Our duty and our calling, in each generation, to live into the promises of the ideas this nation is founded on.
Don’t be the generation that allows our sacred ideas of freedom, justice, and self-governance to die.