When I think about America, I think about one of those house-flipping TV shows on TLC or HGTV. You know, the TV shows where a newlywed couple with wide eyes and big dreams finds an old rundown house, and as the audience, we see a mess, but their hopeful eyes see so much more.
They look past the peeling paint and rotting floor boards, the termite tracings and evidence of neglect and they see a home. A place they can plant themselves and raise a family. As wide-eyed and optimistic as they might appear, they know that it will take hours of work, patience, money and elbow grease to pull the place together, but they are determined and they are passionate. So room by room, they plan, they draw, they demolish, and they rebuild, and room by room, their home begins to come together. Slowly but surely.
In my eyes, America is one massive fixer-upper. America has always been a fixer upper. This country was built on the shaky foundation of murder. Of theft, and entitlement. Of people taking things that do not belong to them, trying to erase the history of their brutality, renaming their violence "greatness."
Maybe I am missing something, and if I am, please enlighten me.
What part of our history was great?
The racism of this country runs deep like the roots of a tree. Just beneath the surface of the "progress" we have made, the dirt is drenched in the blood of those fighting, and dying for it. And it's not just black versus white racism, but white versus everyone else.
Just look at the very beginning of our 'great' nation; does anyone remember the good old days of colonization? Or more correctly, the mass slaughter of our indigenous population?
According to statistics, there were 10 million Native Americans living in the U.S. before the Europeans arrived in the 1400's. This was their home. Then we came here and killed them with our diseases, and our artillery, forcing them onto reservations and killing those who fought back. We escaped the oppressive grip of the British, and celebrated by building our homes right on top of the people who were already here. Not so great.
Or maybe the greatness that is being referred to is the racism that continued after the Native Americans were silenced.
We all know what happened after that. One word pretty much sums it all up; Slavery. That wasn't all that great either.
There is a political slogan plaguing our country today that is dripping with irony. Irony caused by the fact that most of us are painfully aware that this country has never been great. Irony because of the blatant ignorance of our past. Those of us who paid attention in our history classes, and those of us who took it upon ourselves to learn more. So many of our history books are sugar coated. We get half the story, and the history erasers get to keep pretending that injustice never happened.
Don't get me wrong, I love the United States. I was born here, I was raised here, this is my home. But even a place that we call "home" can be a bit of a fixer upper. America is much more than that. America is a damn mess to say the absolute least, but that doesn't disqualify the pieces of it that are beautiful, the people here who know the history and are not trying to cover it up but trying to heal from it and do better than our ancestors did. Room by room the couple fixes up their home, and we have to do the same. Room by room, city by city, person by person, we have to break free of an out-dated way of thinking. Because if we don't the home will never be built and the blood will never stop.
So no, it's not time to "Make America Great Again." It's time to make America great. Period. Or at very least, make America livable for all.
