When reading my next few words keep in mind I am flag waver, born on Veteran's Day. I have a few problems with America. Don't get me wrong I love my country, but Chris Rock had the right of it. When you're black you have to look at America a little differently than everyone else.
My problem with America is there is often a schism between what we say we stand for and what we do. When we were climbing the mountain top saying we were the land of freedom, we held slaves. When we said we were the land of opportunity signs went up in shop windows saying no jobs for niggers, spics, paddies and chinks. When we said we were a land of popular sovereignty, we were assassinating fairly elected heads of state. When we said we were a land of law we were taking part in torture.
I will say it again. There is a schism between what we say we stand for and what we do. I love all the rhetoric. I love the talk of freedom, individualism, opportunity, and rule of law, but often that's all it is, talk.
What pisses me off all the more is that we are often blinded by the talk that we don't see our own hypocrisy, nor do we want to. We assume that we are the land of the free and just solely by our nature and not by our labor. We must remain vigilant and realize that it is our duty, mine, yours, all of our duty to make this country align itself with what we believe is the character of it's people.
As I have said, before one of the issues in the current budget debate is how we should practice our ideals. I have no answers for this question. I just pray that this will not be another time in our history when our offspring will look at us with shame and say we betrayed ourselves. We must find an honorable compromise between our morals and our wallets lest the current trench becomes an indomitable canyon.
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