Bi-polar America

Reflecting on ‘race in America’ before, during and after the July 4th national holiday this election year, I’ve come to the conclusion that my country has a personality disorder: we’re bi-polar.

One pole of our personality is anchored in some truly awesome and inspiring principles and ideals that date back to our country’s Declaration of Independence. From its preamble:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights,
Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed..."

Thrilling, right? Perhaps these are principles to die for, but we waive the flag with national pride and march to war to 'liberate' others when we have yet -- after more than two hundred years -- to implement these ideals in own society.

Because the other pole of our personality is anchored in what Barack Obama described in his March 18 speech this year at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, as “this nation’s original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the (national constitutional) convention to a stalemate until the Founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least 20 more years and to leave any final resolution to future generations.”

By the way, that’s us – their ‘future’ is, and has always been, our present.

Schizophrenic: heal thyself!