The United States of America has never been genuinely united, and certainly is not now. With partisan splits, racial splits, linguistic splits, economic splits, lifestyle splits, religious splits, geographic splits, we have more splits than at a gymnastics tournament or an ice cream emporium, except not impressive and not cool.
Are we to remain this way? Some people enjoy scapegoating, hating, “othering,” and seem to need prejudices, conspiracies, superstitions. I choose to believe that those people are in the minority, but they’ve been allowed to become aggressive, destructive, brazen. Yes, “allowed.”
Too many of us who want unity have allowed current disunity by not being more vocal, more visible, more brave, more insistent that “othering” is wrong and will not be tolerated, will not be allowed to dominate, will not be allowed to define us, will not be our destiny.
No one person can correct our present disunity, but together we can correct it, by insisting in every moment, in every setting, on unity. Every drop of water is part of a river. If each drop opted out, there would be no river. We are each a vital part of the flow of history. Where is that river headed? United?
