HATE
We Humans are the only species on earth that hate. We are also the
only species completely in charge of our own destinies.
America is the greatest experiment in world history. It is
no accident that we are geographically removed from all other continents.
You might say we were given this piece of earth so that we could not only
imagine the concept of a free and equal society, but also make it reality.
No one ever believed it would be easy. No one ever believed
it would happen quickly, or without dissension and angst. Ideas are
starting points: the Title of the novel, if you will. And this particular novel
is not yet finished. In fact, it is fair to say it will never be
finished.
In 1861 President Lincoln pronounced that "a country divided
against itself cannot stand." Thus began the Civil War.
Six-hundred-twenty thousand combatants died. Some 50,000 civilians
perished along with them.
It was a bitter time in our country and it ended with the
assassination of Lincoln on April 14, 1865, just five days after the surrender
of Confederate forces on April 9th.
While there was more than one reason for the Civil War, at its
apex was slavery. The perceived right of some individuals to own others
whom they thought inferior. Even Lincoln considered the black man and
woman less than he and his counterparts. But Lincoln also believed that
every person had the "inalienable" right to chart their own destiny;
and that no man or woman should be held in chains, or otherwise, against his or
her will.
The Civil War set the black man and woman free, but it was a
tortured freedom that continued to kill and abuse them for nearly one-hundred
additional years. Then, on two separate occasions in 1955, Claudette
Colvin and Rosa Parks refused to give up their seats on a bus to a white
person. Soon the movement for Black rights, Civil Rights, gained momentum.
Its chosen leader was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Forty-one people lost their lives during those trying years, which
fatefully ended with the assassination of Dr. King, in Memphis,
Tennessee, on April 4, 1968.
We are humans first and Americans second.
"American" is a title that places us within a certain group,
which in turn supposedly distinguishes us (one could say "separates
us") from other groups with different names. But every person on
earth was Human first; and only
humans--all seven billion-plus working together--can rid the world of hate.
Sadly, in 2019 hate looms larger than it has in many decades.
In America and many other parts of the educated and free world,
individuals and groups are rising once again to question who deserves to be a
part of their exclusive groups, who is worthy of their respect and who deserves
their disdain.
The Internet and the Cell phone make every voice available every
moment of every day. And we humans are easy prey to the spoken or texted word.
In turn, we often blindly accept as absolute truth that which is said by
those we support or admire. In the process, we surrender our own voices,
our own thoughts. Our natural inclination to question. To step back and listen.
To consider. To not judge.
To make up our own minds.
The first people to settle in North America are known today as
"Native Americans": The rest of us came later and from somewhere
else: among these peoples were the Spanish, French, Irish, Germans, Italians,
Chinese, Japanese, Russians, Southeast Asians, Cubans, Mexicans, Jews, Indians
and Middle Easterners. In other words, a sampling of the richness of the
whole world has made its home somewhere in the U.S. We once touted
ourselves as the "melting pot" of the world. Today it has
become a "dirty word."
When our founding fathers penned the phrase "all men are
created equal", they did not say "except . . .." No such
caveat was appended. Many respected scientists would add that we all
originated from a common Mother who lived somewhere in Africa. That
possibility alone should give us pause to reconsider how we view each other and
the world.
So why do we continue to hate those unlike us on the outside?
Why do we believe that people from certain countries are thieves, rapists
and useless? Did the Civil War, Civil Rights and Gay right's battles
teach us nothing? Do we really want to spend our days and nights hating
others while the world is begging us to focus our energies elsewhere?
Our children and their children are inheriting a world that
desperately needs cooperation, tolerance and compassion. And these are but the
starting points. Future generations will have little time to hate. They will be too busy dealing with our
current sluggish response to a planet devastated by division and reckless use
of resources.
Global warming is a fact, even if we don't want to admit it. The world's
population is growing by the Billions. Money cannot solve these problems
because it cannot rid the world of division. It cannot rid it of hate.
Only human actions can.
Hate is a weapon as deadly as a gun. And on this day, July 17,
2019, we are a nation divided against ourselves. We have no functioning
Democracy. On one side stand the Democrats and their followers. On
the other, the Republicans and their followers. All other parties melt
into the landscape.
Thankfully, newer members of Congress are speaking their minds.
They have made it clear that they value our founding fathers’ dream; and
they will not be silenced. They are searching, as are many Americans and
the rest of the world, for the once-was concept called the "American
Dream." They were not elected to be a part of “group think."
They were elected to get us back on track.
I congratulate them for their courage. And I stand with them
in their fight to find Democracy and restore it to its rightful place.
As song writer Irving Berlin wrote
so many years ago--the text of which is etched into America's most cherished
icon, the Statue of Liberty, which in turn welcomed thousands of refugees and
immigrants to our Eastern shores:
"Give me your tired, your poor
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore
Send these the homeless tempest-tost to me
I
lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
