What Are You Fighting For?
A Saturday Prompt
Yes, there will be tough and tumultuous days ahead. I intend to engage them, assess them and provide the most honest and useful response that I can. This is my task, indeed our task, as we sort through the most constructive ways to confront the ugly and chaotic efforts to dismantle our democracy.
But it’s exactly this reality that motivates me to focus today on the side of goodness—to linger in the realm of light and reason. Put more concretely, it’s important amid the fight that we don’t lose sight of what we’re fighting for. If we’re combatting the ravages of mass deportation, for example, let’s also remember the value of diversity, how immigration has created America and the yearnings of millions of immigrants who have risked everything for a better life.
When we’re addressing the myriad ways this regime will seek vengeance, let’s remember what real justice looks like. Count me grateful for the determination of President Ulysses S. Grant, for example, and the formation of a Department of Justice in 1870 with the priority of combatting the Ku Klux Klan's murderous reign of terror dressed up as vigilante justice.
So I hope you will share here your ideas about the country we love. To get beyond for a moment the current conflict and cruelty and consider what it is that you think is worth saving or repairing—and why. We are at an inflection point that may make this discussion harder and harder, particularly if the body politic grows darker and darker. That’s why documenting what we love about America—some of which is or will be under threat of survival—is especially important.
I’d suggest this list of love can be seen as an act of opposition. Remembering is part of the saving. By spotlighting what we value, we assert the difference between right and wrong, between the good and the bad, between the decent and the cruel.
I was in Philadelphia for a few days over the holidays. I was reminded of the many extraordinary achievements of Benjamin Franklin, including the invention of the lighting rod to conduct electricity and the Franklin Stove to make cooking safer and more efficient. But I was also reminded that he co-founded the Union Fire Company in 1736, the first formally organized volunteer fire company in the colonies. While there were already Boston Mutual Fire Societies that protected their members, Franklin’s life-saving concept served the whole community. That’s the spirit, Dr. Franklin!
So what do you love about America—and what are you fighting for? This can be as specific as a place or a thing or a person. But it also might be a broader notion about a value or principle such as equality, compassion, justice—or the right to engage in debate and voice our opposition. I hope we can fill up this comment section with our ideas and observations. I am thinking that this could be the start of an occasional series or maybe eventually a book or a documentary in which a wide variety of Americans share their thoughts.
As always, I look forward to reading your responses and for the opportunity of this community to hear from each other. Please do be respectful in your remarks. Trolling will not be tolerated.
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A week ago at my white heavy older persons Presbyterian Church, I found what i truly want in America. We have been led by visionary pastors. we share our church with a middle eastern congregation, many of who speak in arabic, and a Birundi refugee congregation. We share imperfectly. Services are mostly attended in self segregated ways. But slowly, slowly Slowly, the light of passionate worship is touching us stiff White Presby’s. And last week we did one service for all three congregation. We said the Apostle’s Creed simultaneously in three or more languages. It was chaos …and the sweetest music we have ever sent heavenward. It was the melting pot in unity. It was the American Dream in a shining moment. Respect and unity in a shining moment. Our differences- the ones that make us so much more 3 dimensional-gathered in a live of something bigger that our individual selves. I want that America- I want a celebration of this country with respect for so many cultures and an ongoing understanding about how that makes us stronger. We are all the hungry, tired and poor in many ways. We need each other. Other… can be taken as a bad thing. But it truly is not Its an added understanding and perspective in a small world. America, let’s do better. Let’s make the American Dream open to all with open arms.
I’m fighting for my friends in the LGBTQ community. I’m in a fandom that is heavily LGBTQ and the people that I’ve met that are a part of that community are some of the nicest, kindest and friendliest people I’ve ever had the pleasure to meet. I’d go to war for their rights every day.
I’m fighting for diversity in this country. We’re not a democracy if we prop up people and give them power only because of the color of their skin or what their genitalia is. A diverse country and democracy is a great country and democracy.