Fourth a time to renew commitment to America
SAN DIEGO — After all these years, I still love her. Even if I haven’t told her in a while. She’s hurting right now, and she probably needs to hear it. I’m lucky. She’s the whole package. Her beauty, strength, wisdom and compassion are second to none. She’s got a good heart.
She’s not perfect. She has flaws. In fact, she’ll break your heart. Emotionally, there are times when she is a wreck. She has mood swings and outbursts. At times, she withholds her affection. But I cherish her because of her wrinkles, blemishes and shortcomings — not in spite of them. Besides, most of the time, she recognizes when she does something wrong. She’ll admit it, and she’ll make it right. I respect that.
It’s time to show her some affection, appreciation and gratitude. She earned it. And, like I said, these are hard days. This
Fourth of July, in between cookouts and coronavirus, remember to give love to America — even as some of your fellow Americans are getting on your last nerve. While I adore this nation, there were times over the last few months when I didn’t recognize her. I thought: “Where did my country go?”
It’s tempting to say that America is broken. She’s not broken. Her institutions need to be overhauled. But she’s got good bones. She also has checks and balances that are supposed to keep everyone honest.
Our relationship is complicated. I’ve often referred to myself as a Mexican American Yankee Doodle Dandy, a real-life nephew of my Tio Samuel. If you want to attack America, you’ll have to go through me.
But love isn’t always blind. My eyes are open.
Nearly 50 years ago, in a kindergarten classroom in my dusty hometown in Central California, I pledged allegiance to “one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.”
Today, America is more divided than it has been at any time since the 1960s. And sadly, what divided us then — race, police violence, rioting, alienated youth, unequal burdens, etc. — divides us now.
Our country is coming apart because millions of Americans are desperate to work, while millions of others seem happy being paid not to work. The coronavirus knocked down scores of people, and only some of them had the ingenuity and determination to lift themselves up.
Our country is coming apart because freedom isn’t just our greatest blessing but also our most dangerous curse. No sooner had Americans been informed that the main reason to wear masks is to keep others safe than many of them decided that keeping others safe wasn’t a priority.
Our country is coming apart because too many Americans think “liberty” and “justice” don’t apply to them, or those who look like them. Their cause is just, and we can’t ignore it. But racial chauvinism, reverse bigotry, and the cancel culture are just different brands of poisons.
Does anyone believe that the way to advance the message that “Black Lives Matter” is to deface a memorial to the Black soldiers who risked their lives fighting in the Union Army during the Civil War?
Ask someone to put on a mask, and they may cough on you to be cruel. In Los Angeles, Hugo’s Tacos — a small chain of taco shops — recently closed down because employees who asked customers to wear masks have been harassed, threatened and assaulted.
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump recently retweeted a video of supporters where someone yelled out “white power.” On Twitter, you can also find instances of Black men acting violently including recent footage of a 20-year-old African American — who has since been arrested — allegedly punching white elderly patients at the Westwood Nursing Center in Detroit.
In Sacramento, California, a white woman got smacked in the face by a Black woman — deservedly so — when the former referred to the latter with the “N-word.” In Wilmington, North Carolina, three veteran white police officers were fired after they were heard on video spewing what the African American police chief called “hate-filled speech” that included one of them saying he was looking forward to “slaughtering” Black people in an upcoming Civil War.
I didn’t see those stories covered extensively on Fox News. But the right-wing network devoted a whole segment on “Fox News Sunday” to comments by Hawk Newsome — president of the New York chapter of “Black Lives Matter” — who threatened to “burn down this system.”
Clearly, a lot of Americans are behaving badly. It’s enough to make you volunteer to wear a mask. Over your eyes.
Yet, America is more than just an amazing country. It’s an idea that has changed millions of lives for the better. That fact, no one can cover up.