Valentine's Day.
The holiday highlights the most essential traits that define people as "human". Love, above all other traits, is what makes a human a human. The ability to develop emotional ties with other people, to form relationships that last for lifetimes, to spiritually become one with another person is what define humanity.
But there is a much greater force that the word love defines that just a standard emotional connection to one other person. The great compassion for people that a person does not even know, that's what makes people human. The ability to see a homeless person, feel empathy toward their situation, and offer them a few dollars. The ability to see a completely foreign country demolished by natural disaster and desire to reach out and pick them up. The ability to recognize the needs of another and want to help them, this is what defines the human connection.
But the humans that make up America have become surprisingly jaded from this essential definition of humanity. The "I've got mine, jack" syndrome has seemingly dominated American philosophy since the inception of our country. Americans have always seemed to be able to look the other way as long as it wasn't directly harming them. The enslavement of African natives. The forced marching of Native Americans from their homeland. The exhaustive labor of children. The extermination of the Jews in Europe. The internment of Japanese Americans. The segregation of African Americans. The manipulation of the poor. The suppression of homosexuals. The needs of everyday Americans. As long as your well-being is secured, Americans have no interest in the plights of other people.
And it's disgusting.
But we can change. There are already glimmers of hope. The citizen's response to the tsunami in Indonesia in 2004 and the earthquake in Haiti in 2010 have shown that Americans can reach out and help people of completely foreign nationalities in need. The public support for public health insurance and freedom of expression for gay military members shows Americans can care about the needs of people domestically. There have been enough people pulled from crashed vehicles, pushed out of the way of moving cars, and led out of burning buildings to show that Americans do have the capacity to care, to feel, to love.
But we need to be louder. The voices of hate, the voices that say the people don't want the government to provide health care for everyone, that say we should have literacy and civics testing at election polls again, that Barrack Obama is the "affirmative action president", they are loud and proud. The voices that care and love their fellow Americans need to be out there and let our leaders, our peers, and the voices of hate know that we will not stand for their intolerance, that we will be heard and that will not let them take our country again.
Americans, let your love be heard.
Monday, February 15, 2010
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