"Can't you come over to me when you are finished inside?" I replied.
"It will be raining then. Please," he begged.
Seeing as it was slow, and drizzly, and he had nine people with him, and he clearly very much wanted to hear a story, I walked over and obliged. "Just someone keep an eye on my things," I told them, and they assured me they would and cheered at my accommodation. I made some remark about the barrier between us, and he responded "we're always behind barriers these days," at which we all - the four adults in the group and I - shared a laugh and a "well played." They were a Latino family, you see. The joke was fitting, if a little too real.
Still, the spirit of the group was jovial, and the children were young, so I chose my most animated and entertaining story, "Escape from the State House." My rendition of the story is full of British accents, tea jokes, and exaggerated physicality. It's my story that leaves people thinking "who knew?" but not exactly emotionally affected. I never get chills telling that story, like I sometimes do telling the story about Caesar Rodney and his crucial vote for Independence on July 2, 1776. I never see people ruffled in righteous indignation at our country's history like I do when I tell about Frederick Douglass.
Thus, I wasn't expecting to choke up as I pointed to each member of this family with my imaginary billy club. I wasn't expecting to feel the weight of my whiteness as I called them "rebel scum" in a voice out of My Fair Lady. I wasn't expecting to feel desperation as I mimed pulling off wooden planks to find a small hole that could lead to freedom, even though that freedom is "a long way down." I wasn't expecting to swell with simultaneous fear and courage when I, as Captain Charles Alexander, escaped. I wasn't expecting to look forward to better days as the words "brought hope to the city of Philadelphia" slipped for the hundredth time out of my mouth.
Freedom is fragile. That's often the lesson people take away from that story, when I tell them the very building in which we declared our independence is used by the British as a prison for American officers just one year later. But, as I say, "we all know how the story ends:" we win the war, we kick the British out once and for all, and we proceed on to form a new nation founded in religious freedom, fair trials, and life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all.
But the story doesn't really end there, does it? It took 89 years for the institution of slavery to be abolished, and another 100 years for segregation to legally end. It took 144 years for women to get the vote in 1920. Communities in the United States have been discriminated against for their ethnicity, their skin color, their marriage partner, and, yes, even their religion, despite that being the freedom that started the whole country in the first place.
At the heart of the American Revolution was an abasement of human dignity, which is precisely why the Second Continental Congress had to first and foremost establish that "all men are created equal." Without acknowledging human dignity, no freedom can be sought or achieved, no country can be well-established or rightly governed. Through the years, our nation has struggled to live this clause out to its fullest potential, and today is no different. Yet, our failings should not determine our future. The United States of America has yet to be the best version of itself, but the way to become so is written plain and simple, right there in our founding document. In fact, it's even simpler. It's "self-evident."
Through the years, many men and women have understood this and worked tirelessly to help America become the best version of itself. Today, men like Captain Charles Alexander sometimes appear in the shape and form of a brown-skinned, Spanish-speaking man desperate to make a new life for his family, or of a religious sister trying to bring books, toys and food to saddened, separated children, or of groups of people young and old huddled together on city blocks, holding signs of resistance. People who are looking for a better life. People who are challenging the status quo. People who are tired of maltreatment. People who risk their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor just like the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence, in the name of a better and more just tomorrow. People who, no matter how dark it seems, no matter how desperate, choose to act with courage, with love, and with hope. People who understand and defend human dignity.
A life without dignity is inhumane. America without human dignity is a hoax.
So, America, what do you want to be? Hoax - or hope?
"May our struggles and concern for this planet never take away the joy of our hope." - Pope Francis, Laudato Si'
No comments :
Post a Comment