Making
Progress
“We
all want progress, but if you're on the wrong road, progress means
doing and about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that
case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.”
C.S.
Lewis
Yesterday,
one of you kindly pointed out a major flaw in my thinking, and for
that I am deeply grateful. Ina emailed me and very kindly asked about
my notion that we struggle with controversial issues, but always come
down on the right side. She listed a few of our mistakes--'what about
Vietnam, Iraq, Guantanamo; what about our Native Americans?' And of
course, she is right. We absolutely have made terrible and costly
mistakes—we have wronged people and left them to suffer, we have,
in the wars of the last 10 years, killed tens of thousands of people
in Iraq and Afghanistan. We, as American's have as much blood on our
hands as anyone in the world. We do not stand blameless and in fact,
even now we wrestle with prejudice and discrimination, most
especially toward our gay and lesbian population, and our
undocumented immigrants.
I
suppose what I was thinking about yesterday was our Civil Rights era
as it related to African Americans. We have struggled with the issue
of race from the time of our birth as a nation, and we struggle with
it still. I believe the deep hatred some people have for our
President is veiled racial prejudice, though no one wants to call it
that. We have certainly made progress, but it must seem to many,
too little and too late. As a country, we have not made sure that all
children receive a quality education, and we have failed to hold
certain populations to the same standards, or allow them the same
privileges, as the majority white race. I found this to be just as
true in New York City and California, in North Carolina and Tennessee
and Florida, as it is in Alabama. The South does not hold a monopoly
on prejudice, though we have certainly fallen far short of
perfection.
So,
I want to retract my statement that we always come down on the side
of 'right'. I want to say this: we struggle, we debate, we wrestle
with ourselves and each other, and some of the time, we get it right.
I truly believe that in the long run, we will grow into the nation
that we believe ourselves to be, simply because we are willing to
struggle. Our children are far less restricted in their acceptance of
differences than our generation or our parents generation, and their
children will be even more so. And soon, we will be one nation
composed totally of minority populations—all of us will fit the
category, so we'd better figure out how to live together in peace.
Thank
you so much, Ina, for helping me to think this through and realize my
mistake. I always appreciate your comments, whether you like what you
read, or not, so keep them coming.
In
the spirit,
Jane
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