We must recommit to the American dream

Igrew up in the 1950s. In the South. Equality was less of a reality than it was a hope, and less of a hope than a shining goal — a kind of mirage in the desert or a sweet fantasy, like something you’d see in a Walt Disney movie. But we believed in the fantasy. At least, I did. It wasn’t about data or facts. It was something you felt in your heart. It was part of the ground you stood on, the foundation of what you were doing, like going to school every day and singing songs about “working on the railroad” and “this land is your land.” We were bound by some ephemeral idea of nationhood — not as a code of conduct but as a wish. We wished to be good, strong Americans. We wished to practice democracy, and while we had different ideas about what that meant, we were OK with endorsing the general dream.

It’s that dream that’s in danger now, and we all know it.

Our Congress seems more intent on carrying out a deadly pillow fight than on governing. We have a president who doesn’t know what it means to lead.

And still I experience moments of optimism. Like ordering breakfast at a neighborhood cafe saying: “I’d like a doughnut, a cup of tea and a new president.”

And the server responds with: “Oh, sweetie,” and a generous smile.

Or celebrating with friends this past Fourth of July by reading the Declaration of Independence, as we have done for years.

This year, the words rang truer than ever because the founding fathers seem so hellbent on revolution. Not that they cherished violence. They warn against overturning an established order without great cause. Yet they felt that people have a right to change their form of government if they can’t bear the meanness, injustice and plain crumminess of how they’re being treated.

They wrote great words, behind which lie great hopes. There is value in the concept of America, in its high-minded and sometimes (perhaps frequently) off-the-wall idea that all humans are created equal and that we can live in the spirit of our extraordinary dreams. That’s the thing we need to save. And we won’t do it by slinging insults or grabbing our guns. We’ll do it by holding fast to the great fantasy that we are all part of this experiment in faith. Faith in our capacity to believe in ourselves. To work hard for a world that protects our precious resources and our loved ones. Faith in a form of selfgovernment that is, at best, idealistic, and, at worst, insanely optimistic.

We have to save this imperiled ship. We have no one to turn to but each other. And we need to remember all the people who went through oceans of pain, joy and struggle so we could come to this place that was never so much a place as it was an idea.

Yes, we know there were bad folks who came here out of greed or for power. And yes, we know America still is (and always will be) home to some bad people whose interests work against democracy. But either we recommit ourselves to the goals of liberty and justice for all or we sink in a sea of rule by the rich, of corruption, of lazy greed and even lazier addiction to all things mean, petty and self-serving.

We need to rededicate ourselves to the crazy notion of America. Of all of us, together, sailing this almost unmanageable ship into the future.

Marian Chatfield-Taylor of San Francisco works on public engagement and democracy concerns.

There is value in the concept of America, in its high-minded and sometimes off-the-wall idea that we can live in the spirit of our extraordinary dreams.