When he (the Trumpster) said that thing he said, I thought about the barbeques I've been to with friends of mine and their immigrant families.

I wish I knew how it felt to see the statue of liberty, celebrate the Fourth of July with your immigrant family, and hold hands with your grandmother as she cries looking at an image of Ellis Island thinking of her parents and grandparents.  

Lady Liberty

To be with them, at the barbeque, and look around at all of the abundant good that came from their great-grandparents' decision to leave Iran or Cuba, or Central or Southern Africa, or India, or Vietnam or Korea, or China and BECOME AMERICAN for the express purpose of giving their families a better, freer life, changing their families trajectories for generations...it makes me appreciate things from a different angle.

The significance of this type of moment that I have with my friends, whose grandparents and great-grandparents came from these countries, and who are in their thirties and some in their forties like me, is not lost on me.  I try to share these moments with them and feel what they feel for this country, because, hell, I was born here.  I take TONS for granted sometimes. 
 

#FirstWorld

I am moved by the depth of appreciation of the American ideal or the "idea" that the philosophy of freedom the "forefathers of the constitution" intended for the people brave enough to make such a, in lots of cases, dangerous choice to immigrate when they did.  In other words...

I think I get it.  

When you look at where they came from, you can see why they left.  You can see why they felt they HAD to leave when they did.  You can easily see why the 'idea' of America meant enough, meant more.

(Interject - I know there are Native American implications to the American "idea" and the so-called "forefathers of America" were proven land thieves, and this is a different, layered set of issues, that I promise you, I am not ignoring. Just focusing on one thing in this essay - and it's still hard...but, back to trying to make my point...)

I wish I felt like my friends and their immigrant families do.  

But I'm a Black American woman and according to some of those OTHER immigrants, my great-grandparents weren't ENTITLED to feel any way about being here.  Most of them were enslaved and forced to be here and I was born here because of that.

Still, the American 'idea' is a strong one and it's safe to say that the option to be anywhere else other than here only crosses my mind when the leaders of this country say stupid things.  With the power they hold and the American 'idea' behind their positions, it's a conundrum. 

Yeah...

...and, how, exactly are we doing that?

I can jump to the same conclusion about their ignorance and hatred and racist nature as everyone else does.  We are all right, by the way, because, what else makes a powerful leader say such things unless it was how THEY are conditioned to see this country and the people coming to it?  

Of course, they're racist - the specific folks who said this shit.  I don't think there's any question on THAT point.

But not all of them are purely speaking race hate.  One of the most revered Republican leaders said some things I liked hearing.  Their Golden-Boy, Ronald Reagan, even said himself in a speech he gave in 1988:

“America represents something universal in the human spirit. I received a letter not long ago from a man who said, ‘You can go to Japan to live, but you cannot become Japanese. You can go to France to live and not become a Frenchman. You can go to live in Germany or Turkey, and you won’t become a German or a Turk.’ But then he added, ‘Anybody from any corner of the world can come to America to live and become an American.”

— https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenhayward/2013/12/06/ronald-reagans-shining-city-of-exceptional-immigrants/#56e38e14639f

The article in December 2013 Forbes goes on to say that 'A person becomes an American by adopting America's principles, especially those principles summarized in the "self-evident truths" of the Declaration of Independence, such as "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Carl Friedrich wrote that "To be an American is an ideal, while to be a Frenchman is a fact.

My point is...

...that as a Black-American (notice, I didn't say African-American, because, I was born in Central City near downtown) who's great-grandparents were enslaved and raped and she WOUND UP American can only lean on a couple of American 'ideas' and can only feel, let's face it, SOME OF that sense of pride.  

Our American 'idea' comes from a slightly different place.  This is the idea that I fight for and stand on. 

Proudly. #MLKJRDay

Thinking...

A kid in Plano TX drew this - wish I knew the name of the artist for this caption. It's an awesome image for times like these.

After ALL the work my great-grandparents and their parents did to build the railroads and homes and work the fields and farms and, don't kid yourselves, raise and feed the children - yeah, I said it - so that the most powerful leader, the American President in 2018, can have the life he has, in 2018...for him to say what he said...see people the way he does...well, I dropped my coffee.  

I shook my head.  I felt my stress level start to rise.  And then, I got back to work.

But how could it not bother me?  How could I not be just as angry as my immigrant friends and their grandparents are right now?  How could this type of leader make THESE type of comments and NOT make every American seethe?

Yes, I know we all have to get back to work, because...work.  

However, my mind is split now between my work, paying bills, taking care of my daughter and dogs and the kittens, getting to my doctor's appointments, getting along better with my ex, making sure my clients are okay, checking in with my business partners, pushing back deadlines to fit it all in, planning to spend some kind of time with friends, AND NOW...those barbeques...the stories my friend's grandmother told me about her father and how scary it was for him to make his way here with small children in tow...and how every time she sees ANY picture of New York, it chokes her up...and seeing my friend take her hand...and that look, that long, loving, proud gaze they share...it puts a crack in my throat.

In August of 1963, my favorite American said: 

A great American (Lincoln) in whose symbolic shadow we stand, signed the Emancipation Proclamation.  This momentous decree came as a beacon of light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of a withering injustice.  

It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of captivity.
But one hundred (and now one hundred and fifty-five) years ago, we must face the tragic fact that {we are} still not free...on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity...languishing in the corners of American Society and  {finding ourselves} an exile in his own land.

So, I came to Washington this day to dramatize an appalling condition...in a sense...to our's nation's Capital to 'cash a check'.

When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.  Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the...people a bad check; a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds".  So we have come {and he did go, on August 28th, 1963 to Washington DC} to cash this check - a check that will give us...the riches of freedom and the SECURITY of justice.

This is NO TIME {and it still isn't!} to engage in the luxury of cooling off or taking the tranquilizing drug of gradualism.  

NOW is the time to make real the promise of Democracy. 

NOW is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of SEGREGATION to the sunlit path of RACIAL JUSTICE...NOW is the time to LIFT OUR NATION from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.

Then he went into what is still my favorite part: 

“The...militancy {engulfing the community} must not lead to a distrust of ALL white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence...have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with OUR destiny and their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone...I say to you...my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the AMERICAN DREAM.”

— Middle of 'Dream' Speech

Now the rest of Martin Luther King Jr.'s speech is the popular part.  I'm sure you've heard it all before.

The crack in my throat when my friend holds one of her grandma's hands and then her grandma looks at me and softly begins holding mine...that's when all bets are off! 

#waterworks

My militant friends...I love them dearly, but I love my favorite American much more.  And in these tough, Trump times, I try to remember Barack and the "I Have A Dream" speech and I try, with all my might, to think about the barbeques.