The Giant is Convulsing

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath —
America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain —
All, all the stretch of these great green states —
And make America again!

Langston Hughes, “Let America Be America Again.” 1935

The 100,000th American death from COVID-19 was recorded last week. A Black man was again murdered by police officers in broad daylight and on video. A city in the American Heartland erupted in flames of anguish and rage. Cities all over the country shortly followed suit. Meanwhile, our president threw another tantrum, attacked free speech again, and openly encouraged police to fire on protesters. Now he’s hiding in a bunker. We’re bringing in this new decade with an awful, dystopian nightmare.

I wish I could honestly say that I’m shocked. But I’m not. These are not “senseless tragedies.” Quite the opposite. They make a lot of sense. Our healthcare system functions far better at generating profits than saving lives. Our system of policing is horribly effective at abusing Black Americans and horribly ineffective at punishing these abuses of power. Our president has shown from the campaign trail to the White House that he respects nothing and no one that does not serve his own self-aggrandizement. The demand that our nation understand that Black lives matter is often met with the cynical refrain: “All Lives Matter.” However, in the final analysis, we’ll find that our nation often operates as if no lives matter.

The bill comes due. We could not continue to allow a system that abuses and murders black and brown people in the name of the law. We could not continue to allow a system that withholds medical care from the financially vulnerable and masquerades as “healthcare.” We could not continue to sacrifice human beings at the altars of profit and comfort without consequences.

This is not the America I was taught about growing up. The one that was founded on “liberty and justice for all.” The one that saved the world from Facism less than 100 years ago. As a white-skinned Puerto Rican, I was privileged to believe in that version of America longer than many. Yet, as the curtain is again pulled back to reveal the awful rot infecting our nation, I desperately want to believe in that good picture of America. Not as a reality that already exists, for it is clear that it does not. But as a dream to aspire to.

I write this knowing that many of my friends who will read it share my privileged existence. The America of our history books is in many ways a reality for us. There is liberty and justice…for some. Perhaps even for more than in most other nations in history. But liberty and justice for some, or even for most, is not enough.

If George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery could be murdered and their murderers could reasonably expect to get away with it, then the American experiment has not yet succeeded. If 100,000 of our citizens could die from a pandemic virus, then the American experiment has not yet succeeded. If the President of the United States can continue to abdicate his duty while the nation faces its worst crisis since 1941 and its worst upheavals since 1968, then the American experiment has not yet succeeded. If even one of our fellow Americans is denied the rights to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” on account of their race, bank account, or whatever else, then the work of building America is not yet done.

To be sure, the lofty ideals that flowed from Thomas Jefferson’s slave-owning pen ring hollow to many of us 244 years later. Hypocrite though the author may have been, I would contend that the problem is not the ideals themselves but that they have yet been realized. It’s time to finish the job. It’s time for those of us with privilege to stand with our brothers and sisters without. Not just now when it’s at the forefront of our minds but every day until the work is done.

Call me naive if you will but I still believe in America. I don’t believe in this country because of some ahistorical and unbiblical notion that it’s God’s chosen nation but because it’s the one we’ve got. And I refuse to believe that the most prosperous nation in human history cannot afford to treat each and every one of its citizens justly.

This is not simply the work of government officials. Rather, it starts with each and every one of us. As the prophet Micah wrote some 2800 years ago, “He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” For some of us, that may look like confronting casual racism in our family and friends or even in ourselves. For others, it may look like putting our money where our mouth is and donating to organizations working for change. Maybe it looks like changing the way we vote or even voting for the first time. It probably looks like all of these things and much more. I wouldn’t presume to prescribe what each of us must do to realize the promise of America. I can only implore you to start doing something.