Yes, the men considered to be the founding fathers and builders of our country’s foundation were audacious, courageous, determined, and visionary. And yes, many of us can imagine living with laws, rights, and freedoms especially if we have benefited from those protections.
Now imagine being excluded from those original laws, rights, and freedoms because you were a woman, Indigenous, and/or a slave. These groups were not given rights or freedom. More often their rights and freedoms were stolen. They were, however, given responsibilities and told to follow the law. It was the physicality, intellect, and spirituality of these excluded groups that helped build an°d enrich our country. They lived and worked alongside the founders, and did so with audacity, courage, determination, and visionary thinking.
The “mistakes” of the past were not simply errors in judgement as is suggested in this article – they were designed intentionally to exclude certain people, and those exclusions have caused lifetimes of harm felt to this day.
We say all of this not to cause feelings of guilt because guilt is a paralyzing weight. We say this because we agree that “…one cannot improve, cannot change, until one recognizes and accepts one’s starting place….” But in order for our country to improve and change we must remember that the starting places for many of our ancestors were unequal, unjust, and horrible.
Yes, we are still ranting about the horrors of the past because those horrors continue to happen multiple times every day in our country. We are not ranting to tear our nation apart; we are ranting as a call to mend our nation. We are ranting because our country is being torn apart by people who want us to forget. We are ranting because too many of us have been dismissed. We are ranting because we have a right and a responsibility to do so when we witness injustice, inequality, and horror. When one is furious one rants.
The “imperfections” in our country’s founding have become systemic and institutional racism so ingrained in our daily lives that most of us don’t even see or understand the impact on our society. These imperfections will not go away because we ignore them and keep them conveniently out of view. They will, at some point, go away because many of us will continue to rant until they no longer cause harm. Then we will truly be a country great in our humanity.
It is not enough to thank Uncle Sam for the endurance of our country. We should thank everyone who worked to create our country. We should thank everyone who ranted in the past and everyone who continues to rant against those who believe they own all the rights with no responsibility toward others. Come to think of it…our founding fathers were likely the first to rant as they debated the future of our country.
Christina Aubel & Michael Koetje
