Please stop saying, “This isn’t America.” Because, IT IS!

Trump rioters occupy the West Front of the Capitol and the inauguration stands on Jan. 6, 2021. (Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call)

To every pundit, journalist, politician, and fellow human who keeps saying, “This isn’t America.” or “This isn’t who we are.” or “This isn’t American.” Please stop, reflect, and reconsider so we can change the narrative and grow past this moment. Denial is an obstacle to healing.

This IS the America where a race-based caste system pits poor and working-class people against each other every day to vent the pressure created by a culture of exploitation. This culture of exploitation is a relic of the history and culture of colonialism, privilege, oppression, and slavery. A culture which predates the evolution of market capitalism.

This IS the America that uses both sanctioned and unsanctioned violence to achieve its will: remember lynching, remember the unlawful removal of native people, remember Tulsa in 1921, remember the Trail of Tears, remember Japanese internment, look at our incarceration numbers…

This IS America too. This is who we are too. It is not just the parts we want to weave into our fairy tale of a city on a hill; it is the mountain of bodies and injustices used to build the hill we climbed. It IS the attempted forgetting of all those dirty secrets. America can never be whole until she undergoes a process of truth and reconciliation. As long as we love the myth of America more than we love our human siblings, we ourselves are perpetuating the core causes of the January 6th violence at the Capitol.

We must differentiate between aspiration and delusion. We must stop playing the blame game. Black Lives Matter protests were predominantly peaceful, and also resulted in rioting, violence, and destruction. The left made excuses, and the right made accusations. January 6th protests at the Capital were predominantly peaceful, and also resulted in rioting, violence, and destruction. The right made excuses, and the left made accusations. There is even an interest in blaming law enforcement for our shaken sense of security. What can we really learn from these failures of discipline and this unproductive finger pointing?

1. We blame and demonize individuals and groups in order to avoid the hard work of recognizing and healing cultural and systemic problems.
2. We hide from the facts behind our beliefs — if you are feeling smug right now, then you are misreading. This isn’t about ‘“they”, about blaming others. Try it this way: You hide from the facts behind your beliefs.
3. The fundamental prerequisite of any democracy is an educated electorate. We have failed at this task abysmally. We have a populace unequipped to apply the most basic concepts and practices required to navigate the current age, for example: confirmation bias, selection bias, baseline happiness, self-regulation, and discrimination between facts, opinions, and theories.
4. We continue to reinforce a might-makes-right culture through our approaches to international relations, military spending, law enforcement, and incarceration. You can’t effectively eliminate or manage violence with more violence or with the threat of violence.

What can we do? It is a conversation we MUST have TOGETHER, for my part I offer these few suggestions:

1. Fairness Doctrine. A new fairness doctrine to replace the one we effectively lost in 1987.
2. Public funding of federal elections. If we really want elected officials doing the “people’s business” (as I’ve heard over and over in recent days), then we have to stop the fundraising treadmill that currently consumes so much of their time and attention. (Federal law putting explicit limits on campaign season would likely be necessary as companion legislation.)
3. Direct, Modern Democracy. For example, federal establishment of ranked choice voting and the elimination of the electoral college. Individual people are the unit of democracy; other approaches are rooted in historical cultures of colonialism and oppression. We can also adopt better tools and standards for voting.
4. Demilitarization. We appreciate how non-violent protest can peacefully change corrupt systems — we have yet to explore how the tools of non-violence can govern a just and peaceful society and to create a world at peace.
5. Decriminalization. We think of every criminal as “a person who has failed society.” What would happen if we recognized that every criminal is “a person whom society has failed?” Holistic wellness, healthcare, and education are less expensive, more productive, and more humane than incarceration.
6. Holistic Educational Reform. From my own research, reflection, and spiritual practice I prefer the approach that understands humans as having four realms: body, mind, spirit, and emotions. We need a holistic education system that intentionally nurtures the development and maturation of all four aspects. Similarly, the lessons of strengths-based approaches and project-based learning need to be integrated, replacing the industrial-age educational model.

None of these are easy. They are big, messy projects with complicated policy and cultural aspects. Some might require Constitutional amendments. So what? Are we going to shrink from the hard work? That would follow in the footsteps of our vaunted forefathers: remember reconstruction and the 3/5ths compromise? I think it’s time to claim a new American tradition, one based on aspiration and grounded in fact, not historical fantasy. If you want THIS to NOT be America, we have to work to make it true. It is time for a #NewAmerica.