Hard to argue that America does not need a reboot big time. The reboot challenge goes back more than a decade, and today it's entered again into the political discourse of 2020.
But what to delete and which updates to install? As an ex-pat who spent a quarter of his life in Europe, what I think may pale in comparison to how "real" Americans see things. But that's the rub: just why do we so boldly categorize each other into one camp or another? Who and what is a "real" American? Who stands with whom?
Even so, we're often on different pages over issues of law and order and the execution of justice, whether"blue" or "black" lives matter more, whether immigrants should be counted in the nation's census, whether to have a post office equipped to deliver ballots, whether patriotism means standing or kneeling, whether to shield ourselves and others during a known pandemic, whether the country's history we were taught is actually the history we should learn, whether the events we follow are fake or factual. And so much more.
I took a long look at our family's "hard drive": Throughout our extended family of more than 100 people, the social, political and religious views are all over the map. Literally. Some of us live in the south, Florida, Georgia and North Carolina, and Virginia. Others up north in Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Michigan, Wisconsin. Still others out west in Utah, Arizona, and California. And a few in Germany, Italy, Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, China....and Afghanistan.
Our collective roots stretch back to five continents. We're racially black, brown, yellow, white and mixed in between. We're culturally diverse, musically from country to rap and back through gospel and blues to salsa and oom-pa-pa. We're religiously and philosophically surrounded by Jesuits, Priests, Pastors, Rabbis, Imams, humanists and agnostics. Our neighbors and friends tend to be like us, except in a few cases where those like us are in the minority.
My thoughts expressed through =JustUS began four years ago, when I was still in Europe viewing America from a different lens. The hateful, propaganda politics of 2016 were frightening. They triggered in me ramifications of the 1930s machine that targeted my parents and their families in Lower Saxony, Germany. To many of them, I have come to learn, the propaganda somehow rang true. They ended up living through 12 years of mostly hell, even though it was made to look like heaven at the outset.
America's politics of 2020 are even more frightening, divisive and threatening. A democracy that other countries once looked up to and sought to emulate is on the bend. Countries block Americans from entering for fear of becoming infected, haters spin conspiracies once confined to looney bins, and communities ask the President of the country to stay away for fear of the worst.
Especially for families like my own whose diversity cannot be hidden, we need a reboot to elevate the goodness of America. To trash the bugs, scams and viruses infecting our lives.
Reboot art by Linda Woods, available on FineArtAmerica. Photo of faces, Aron Wedekind
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