On Apples, Oranges and Horrific Justifications.

With the celebration of our country’s independence upon us, I am sickened and not much in the mood to light fireworks and sing the national anthem. Shame isn’t even the word to describe the wave of sadness that washes over me as I see fellow Americans justifying the current border crisis of separating families and putting children in cages. When did our politics overtake our humanity, common sense and grasp of basic human rights?

Some Americans are attempting to downplay these horrific mistreatments by comparing apples to oranges. Children being separated from their military parents, or those that serve time in prison away from their loved ones. I find these rationalizations appalling. Anyone who looks at Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs would understand that military members and inmates make conscious choices out of Belonging Needs (i.e. desire to be part of a community) While immigrants are operating on the most baseline level of human need, because they are deprived of physiological and environmental safety. These acts of escape are out of sheer desperation. In the wake of survival and safety, all legal systems go out the window and people must do what they can to ensure the livelihood of themselves and their families. Look into the eyes of those you love and imagine them being deprived of food and safety. Would you not do anything to grant them sanctuary?

Are we not remembering that at the very core of this United States of America, its foundation is built upon the beautiful diversity of immigrants? When pilgrims snuck into a boat and set sail in search of the land of opportunity and religious freedom at Plymouth, when we broke free from the tyrannical King George during the American Revolution, people were seeking the same sacred gifts and rights as those climbing our border walls. That same desperation and courage is the very blood of the American spirit. Our legal system is deeply flawed, not the people seeking refuge.

I see many Americans sitting upon their high horse, claiming patriotism, while looking down at the border walls and laughing at people fleeing a country of desolation, pain and horrific violence. Ignorance flows within our land in mighty abundance. It is full of people that have no idea what true desperation and survival is, all for the simple fact they had the good fortune of being born in the United States. Not once are they reflecting back upon the blood, sweat and tears it took our ancestors to create such a place that others feel worthy of fleeing to. Not once are they acknowledging that same motivation existed for all of those souls before us who built the land of the free and home of the brave.

The world is an orchard, and comparing apples to oranges does not serve any of us well. Down playing and attempting to minimize violence breeds deeper evil upon the human race. The things nightmares are made of will emerge. Weeds of intolerance will spring up and overtake our country with a pestilence of bigotry if we are not careful to prune the ignorance. We cannot let this ignorance blur our memory of why this country was established in the first place. As fireworks light up the sky and we dance with our sparklers in the night, may we not honor just our own freedoms, but the liberty and justice every human being deserves. It has been said that the American Spirit is stronger than stone and mortar, tougher than steel and glass, and more enduring than any pain or suffering that can be inflicted on our national conscience. This concept is not limited to people in the United States, rather the United States was created because of this concept. Our ideas of freedom should not be confined within geographical constraints. We must let the American Spirit extend beyond our borders and out into a world full of dark places that need its light. The same light that led our forefathers and so many immigrants in past centuries to our shores.

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