I was fortunate enough to study abroad in another country (i.e. the best way to pick up a new language quickly) where I was a guest with a host family. The family had a few kids, only one lived at home and I met the other a few weeks into my stay. Upon meeting me (as someone from the U.S and just before the 2016 election) I had a 20 minute head-to-head with the newly returned prodigal son. He — like many of the others I would meet during my stay — grilled me on the political climate in the states and wanted to get my opinion on what was happening and who I thought would win.
Other than a complete appreciation for the amount of attention the rest of the world pays to the political climate of the U.S (when comparatively I for one don’t know the first thing about the political climate of most nations that are not my own) the key take away from that conversation for me, what has stuck with me years later and what I am reminded of now, was the irritation at not acknowledging that “America” did not refer to just those from the United States, “America” means all of the countries a part of the north, south, and central Americas.
I will take one beat to acknowledge my own ignorance and to let that sink in for you dear reader…
To the larger question at hand, the thought if “making America great again” would then obviously include those interests if Canada, Mexico, Brasil, Venezuela, Ecuador, etc. but when one cries for an america as great as the one from the past, the U.S. sentiment is just centered on U.S. interests — that even then, only benefit a portion of the general population of the U.S. For I fail to see how the inhuman immigration detention facilities harken an America that is great, but they are a representation of an America that is not very changed (e.g. Japanese Internment Camps during WWII).
The cry is two sided. What is meant by hateful conservatives that would love nothing more than to return to pre-Civil Rights Movement or the Antebellum period when it was appropriate to have designated and segregated “others”, enslave humans until they believed themselves to be less than human, strip away the dignity of millions, rape and pillage a land just because you could, and make it back in time for a wholesome protestant prayer in a heteronormative family unit.
However, precolonial greatness might mean dignity observed for human beings and nature. Acceptance of different genders, sexual expressions, religion, a true acceptance of different races and cultures because those differences were not seen as important, those differences weren’t weaponized. Living in balance with the earth and giving back what has been taken. A connection to not just the physical but the mental, a society not based on a bottom line and not bound in impossible deadlines and time constraints. One instead reliant on nature’s clock and the natural cycle of things.
One’s perspective determines what the definition of “great” and “America” are. Funny enough, as is a continued theme of this administration, one is either for inclusion, acceptance, empathy, and the recognition of basic human rights and dignity, or one is for hate, breaking apart of all that one disagrees with and — to be frank — the systems that encourage murder and pillaging of the land (which are still more encouraged when the “leader” of said land refuses to denounce those hate groups that encourage separation, exclusion, and destruction of those that are not them).
Yes extreme examples but this is a time of extremes. Greatness carries much weight and much promise, and depending on which side you are standing on, a call for “Law and Order” doesn’t just mean killing the “other”. Taken out of context, a call for law and order can also be spun to mean a cry for accountability for the racial, gender based, sex based, mental health based, etc. discrimination that we are all (in all of America) guilty of in our own ways.
Following the derailing abilities of a populist government structure and the lead of our current leader of these United States, why not take the cry for a Great America and reclaim it for our own?
So I implore you, as we are fresh from and may yet return to social isolation, as a nation, and the world, acknowledge racial discrimination while it is en vogue — and when it is not. Let’s buckle down and see if some inclusive and impactful systematic changes can take place to create a more united group of states built off of acceptance and acknowledgement of past wrongs and systemic injustices that share a desire to move forward on a foundation of accountability and acceptance of basic human dignity and rights regardless of who’s rights are in question.
Caia Rose 