Quickly written political thing and then I shut up...
The founding fathers, who get a lot of respect, were a group of white, affluent, educated men, products either of privilege or of talent. Every single one of them was a Christian, at least in the sense that they had been raised as Christians in a Christian culture. Some were devout, as John Adams was, some were skeptical, as Thomas Jefferson was, some simply attended church regularly and didn’t say much more about it, as George Washington did. Some were slave owners while others abhorred the institution-sometimes even in the same person.
Could they have envisioned our population? Chattel slavery long over, with African-Americans able to vote. Women holding the vote and nearly equal to men in educational and occupational achievement. A population that is almost mind-bogglingly diverse, drawn from every corner of the globe and every faith tradition. Homosexuals increasingly able to live openly, building new definitions of family. People drawn here not only for a better life but also for a better type of life, a life of freedom.
When they signed off on this proposition, “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,” would they have believed what would result from it? The Declaration of Independence is not a law, it is a legal argument, but nothing so well captures the sheer promise of America. When granting religious freedom in the First Amendment, could they have envisioned a society that not only welcomed Hindus and Buddhists, but incorporated some concepts from those traditions into daily life. (Think about it…ever done a little yoga? Described something as “zen”?) Quite probably not. But their words and deeds opened that door a crack, and Americans have been pushing it wider and wider ever since. By enshrining those words and writing the Bill of Rights they took a leap, a great leap, which has led us to this great nation of startling difference and complexity.
One of the great achievements of our culture, is that slowly but surely over time, we just didn’t care about where your family came from, how or whether you worshiped God, or even what happened in your bedroom, we just wanted you to mow your lawn and pay your taxes and turn the volume down by bedtime and raise your children to do likewise. There are exceptions, and grievous ones at that, that might seemingly prove me wrong, but with time I expect to see an ever more gloriously diverse and free population. It’s inevitable, it’s been happening in my lifetime.
However, right now, we are on the cusp of a turning point. There is a large base of people who would hold us back from this vision. They would argue that gays and lesbians, people who don’t worship God the exact same way they do, and possibly even women and people of color, are not entitled to the promise of America.
When I watched the Republican National Convention, I saw that sameness. My husband counted 9 persons of color. I spotted two Hasidim. The rest of the audience was white, well-groomed, well-dressed and very well behaved. Which is nice, I expect.
But it isn’t America.
America is the people who walk through the doors of my little public library building every day. They are young and old. They are every color of humanity. Their English ranges from fluent to non-existent. They are single, married, divorced, widowed. They are gay, straight, or even confused. They are devout Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, Muslims, and Wiccans, and quite a few are atheists, too. They are mentally and physically handicapped. They are addicts at one stage or another of their struggle. They come to my library for books and videos and puppets and music. They desperately want their children to become better readers, or top of their class, or simply happy. They seek comfort in the company of good books or escape in movies. They quest for knowledge or self-improvement. They just want to pursue happiness. And in our society, they are at amazing liberty to do so.
I look at the Republicans and I cannot see that they want to be the leaders of the people who come through my library’s doors. When the Democrats ensured that black people would get to vote and attend decent public schools, they, the party who had freed African-Americans from chattel slavery, became the party of conservative southerners and states’ rights. They gerrymandered Congressional districts to guarantee election results because they could not control a free people any other way. They seized on one problematic and deeply personal moral issue, abortion, and worked to turn back the clock to a time when a woman’s life was forfeit to a rapist’s violence. They forgot nuance and negotiation and judgment. They had to do these things you see, so that they could satisfy and seduce that population of well-dressed and well-groomed whites, 9 people of color and 2 Hasidim into voting for them.
If they could have stuck with fiscal discipline and strong international leadership I could countenance their power, but instead they pandered, and continue to pander to people who may look like the founding fathers, but who are fundamentally unwilling to take the leap that those men did. They may pay it lip service, but when you look at who benefits and who suffers from their policies, their judges, and their decisions, it’s pretty clear that their America is not about the people who walk in my library door. It’s about money, religion, race, class and privilege-things the founding fathers may have liked very much but ultimately abandoned when they accepted the idea that “all men are created equal.