4th of July should be known as Interdependence Day. Remember Ben Franklin’s prophecy upon the signing of the Declaration of Independence: “We should all hang together or most assuredly we will all hang separately.”
244 years later, the beneficiaries of that revered document are hanging all over the map, sick, hospitalized, stuck at home, braving the coronavirus to go to work, or gathering to protest inequalities of skin color, sex, finances, workplaces, policing, government actions and inaction.
Bored silly, some head to a local barroom, café, beach party, church, or funeral parlor (some of these get to go twice, silently on the return visit). Some hangers-on wear a mask and attempt to protect the health of ourselves and others; some hang out with guns and proclaim their liberty is compromised by common sense safety measures or crowds marching for justice. Many people proclaim Black Lives Matter! while many insist Not Unless White Lives Still Matter More!
Other people of color – Latinx, Native Americans, Asians, Pacific Islanders, plus young people, poor whites, LGBTQs, Jews, Muslims and atheists agree steadfastly that Black Lives Matter, but scratch their heads to figure out when their own lives might be brought up to a level where they likewise matter. There is resistance to the resistance – something has to give. What happens to that dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun or does it explode!
Turmoil and conflict are not new under the sun. My lifespan, the second half of the 20th century and the first two decades of the 21st, saw a gradual stop-and-start progress for humans in the United States, later in other countries. The Civil Rights Movement and Ban the Bomb protests gave birth to feminism, gay rights, the American Indian Movement, Hispanic rights activists, peaceniks, Earth Day, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, the drive to lessen tobacco usage, health food promotors, all manner of spiritual gurus, etc.
The 1960s were a mishmosh of soaring inspiration and political assassination, peaceful gatherings and enraged rioting, secret government intrusions on its own citizens while launching men to bounce on the moon.
The 1970s saw the FBI attack the Black Panthers and Students for a Democratic Society morph into the bank-robbing, bomb-planting Weather Underground. The economy tanked, gas stations could not keep up with demand.
The exploration of psychedelic drugs for mind expansion degraded to the desire to party hearty. Jimmy Carter had solar panels installed on the White House; Ronald Reagan threw them on the junk heap.
All of this reverberates in 2020. The yearning for justice and a chance at the American Dream for people who are not straight white men with property, an economy worse off for many people than in 1950. The government mishandling of coronavirus is a warmup for how the US will manhandle climate change.
Youth of the millennial generation and following generations demonstrated a tolerance and appreciation for “the other:” even conservative white Christians were A-OK with non-believers, LGBTQs, individuals with different skin tones, or humans from other countries, cultures and religions.
The big question facing our country on its birthday is are we ready, willing and able to create significant change, not to erase white privilege but to grant universal privilege to every single person regardless of their circumstance? Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?
If protests merely gain lip service, with a few bones of progress to gnaw on, we ain’t going nowhere, the dreams deferred will fester as greed and corruption triumph over altruism made real.
A great ontological question wonders if humans are inherently good or evil: are we on course to fulfill our potential as having been created in God’s image or are we forever branded by original sin?
In the USA, there are three original sins: genocidal victory over the First Americans (Canada’s term for the indigenous people who thrived from the Arctic to Tierra del Fuego); the importation of Black Africans, and concomitant rape of black women to propagate new slaves; and the degradation of land, air and water to create personal and corporate wealth. Are we ready for interdependence?
I am not sure.
from,” at least not living in 1950″