Reminding Ourselves Who We Are–And Can Become

Our nation is in crisis. Now, more than ever, we must remind ourselves who we are—and can become. On this special edition of TURNING OUTWARD TOGETHER, Rich Harwood reflects on the current state of our country, and asks us to remind ourselves of some basic tenets of who we are and who we can become.

Transcript:

Hi, I'm Rich Harwood, and welcome to another edition of Harwood Half Hour. This is another episode of our special programming called Turning Outward Together, an effort to help you stay grounded in what are becoming increasingly challenging times. You can find previous episodes on our Facebook page.

As I speak to you today, our nation sadly, is in crisis. Everything seems up for grabs about who we are, about who we have been, and about who we can become. So, today's topic that I want to talk about is how do we remind ourselves about who we are and who we can become?

Here's a question I'd love for you to think about as we spend the next 20 minutes or so together and that is what are you wrestling with today? What are you wrestling with today?

I struggled with whether or not to do this today or whether or not just to go silent for a week. I struggled with what should I say. I struggled with whether or not I should wait and let others speak out first. I struggled with whether or not I should wait as a white man and let others speak out first. And then I thought about it, and slept on it, and came to the conclusion that especially as a white man, silence would mean that I am complicit In what is happening in our country. We all need to speak out. And we all need to register our voices. And we all need to take a stand right now now more than ever now, especially now.

So I come to you today, wanting to talk about how we can remind ourselves of who we are and who we can become. Our country, as I said, is in crisis. We have a political crisis that has been decades in the making that I've written a lot about and spoken a lot about. Folks in our country no longer trust our institutions. We don't trust our leaders. We don't trust our faith institutions. Heck, we don't even trust one another in many respects.

When I was on my book tour, particularly in the last quarter of last year, I kept saying that we don't have to accept what's happening in our country today. I believe that deeply. And I still believe that and in fact, I believe that even more today than when I was saying it, some months ago. It's obvious that things have gotten worse in the last few months, things have gotten more acrimonious, more divisive, more polarized. We face a global pandemic, the likes of which we have not seen in generations, in our country and around the world. Over 100,000 Americans have lost their lives to this virus. And this virus, this pandemic has made stark the great disparities that we knew existed in our country, but that we can no longer ignore because they are right in front of all of us. Disparities in who has access to health care, disparities in kids, when they're learning at home, who has access to internet and computers. Disparities in people who don't have access to mental health care, or drug treatment, or food, or many other basic needs in our lives. These disparities have hit communities of color harder than they've hit anyone else in our nation.

We have an economic crisis in our country. We have upwards of 20 to 25% of Americans are now unemployed. People are furloughed. People are worried about the future of their jobs, if they are still employed. We're worried about this virus coming back in the fall, where things could get worse. And now with the murder of George Floyd, there is pain and anguish throughout our country, especially among our friends and colleagues and neighbors who are African American. But this pain and anguish is not new. It's not new. What is new is that we can film it and put it on television. But so many African Americans-all African Americans-have been living with systemic racism and white supremacy since before the founding of our nation, and have continued to live with it over the last 400 years.

It is true that we have made progress. But it is equally true if not more true, that the progress we made is hardly enough. There is much more progress that we need to make fighting systemic racism and white supremacy in our country. Our nation is on fire in so many ways. We are seeing protests in hundreds if not thousands of communities clear across our nation. As I mentioned, there is pain and anguish in so many of us and especially in African Americans. In our nation, we see our national leaders failing us, failing us, seeking to silence expression through these protests. Seeking to say that we should be dominating the streets and sweeping people off the streets and sweeping away their expression. We see political leaders talking about dominating the battle, as if somehow Americans are our enemy combatants-in our own land. And we see political leaders, the President in particular, using the sacred Bible as a weapon for hatred and division and he must, as much as I don't like to take stance politically in our work. He must be called out for this as a person of faith. I am offended by this.

Our nation's civic fabric is being ripped apart. And we can no longer stand by and watch this happen. In the days ahead, I want to talk about how we move forward. Those days are coming and we desperately need them. But I want to talk today about something more basic, something more human. Something more personal to you and me, something more collective about all of us. I want to remind ourselves of some basic tenants of who we are, and who we can become.

The first one is this dignity. Do we actually believe in dignity for every, each and every person in our country? You know, dignity for me is a non-negotiable. It's a birthright. It's an intrinsic human value. It's something that you don't earn. It's not something that is given to you. It is something that comes with being on this earth. And for too long, for actually our entire country's history, we have given lip service to dignity. There is dignity for some of us, but not for all of us. Regardless of your creed, regardless of where you live, regardless of your zip code, regardless of your economic situation in your life, regardless of how much money you have in your wallet, regardless of the kind of car you drive, regardless of anything. Do we actually believe that dignity is a birthright? That dignity counts for something, that dignity should drive the actions and behaviors of how we engage with one another?

And it’s also a question of whether every individual in our society is visible to us. Whether or not we have affection for one another, whether or not we agree with one another politically or not. It’s irrelevant to whether or not we afford dignity to each and every person. I believe today, while we're watching the pain and anguish that is coming to the surface in our country again, which as I said is not new. While we are watching the disparities in how this virus is affecting people in our country, which I believe is stripping them of their dignity. Do we believe in dignity for each and every person? And will we stand up for dignity for each and every person? And will we make it a part of our lives each and every day in what we do, in who we see in what we say, in how we engage?

It's a fundamental human choice that we face. We don't need to turn to some book to understand whether or not we believe in it. We don't need to turn to some faith leader who can tell us whether or not we ought to believe in it. We don't need to turn to someone, a neighbor or a friend to tell us whether it's important. All you need to do is look in the mirror and make the choice. All you need to do is close your eyes and decide when you're looking inward at yourself, whether or not when you look outward at others, you will afford each and every person dignity and whether or not we will insist on it in our society as a basic human right, that is non-negotiable, that is intrinsic to human life that we all value.

If the first one is dignity, second is hope. Hope is hope more than just a campaign slogan in our society. It’s more than something we see on commercials, more than just the rhetoric we hear from our political leaders, more than something we may just read in a book. Hope can be a very abstract concept. It can be difficult to get our arms around sometimes. But for me, hope is the farthest thing from being abstract. Hope for me is defined by the single mom who has two kids. And whether, when she starts to wonder, when she sends her two kids off to public school in the morning, does she believe that her two children will have a shot a real shot at the American dream? Does she believe that her two children will be able to have the opportunity to fulfill their God given potential? That is the definition of hope for me. We can see it, we can touch it, we can feel it, we can measure it. Hope for me is about her two kids. When you and I were kids, you may remember this. When you put your head on the pillow at night, and you started to close your eyes. And right before you fell asleep, you began to think just for a moment about what might come the next day. In that moment when you were closing your eyes and right before you fell asleep, I want to know that for single moms to kids, for your kids, for the kids who live down the street from where you are, do they have hope that tomorrow they can go to a school and they will be welcomed in open arms and they will be taught and they will be perceived, and believe that they have the ability to learn? In more basic terms, will those two kids believe that tomorrow will be better than today? That's hope. That's hope. When I was a sick child in hospital beds day after day, year after year, decade after decade, hope for me was whether or not tomorrow would come and whether or not I would have another shot at another day. That's what hope meant for me. It was that basic. It was that real. It was that tangible. We don't need to make hope abstract. What we need to do is make hope real for each and every person in our society.

And today that is simply not the case. That is not the case. Too many people do not believe they have a shot at the American dream. Too many people do not believe they can fulfill their God given potential. Too many African Americans do not believe that when a police officer approaches them, that that police officer is there to protect them and their safety, as opposed to question what they're doing and what they're up to. We have a choice in what we do what you and I do every day, about whether or not we will work to make hope real for each and every person in our communities and in this country. And that means we can't make false promises. We can't raise false expectations. We can't make pledges and promises we know we can't keep and we ought not to make in the first place. We've got to get real. If we want to make hope real, we need to be real, about who we are, what we can do what's achievable. And whether or not we have a real shot at doing it. And if we don't, then let's be honest about it. Let's be transparent about it. And let's only make those pledges and promises we know we can keep or at least have a good shot at hitting.

I believe that dignity is an intrinsic human value and intrinsic basic human right. And I believe hope needs to be made real for each and every person in our society.

Third, I believe we need to make community a common enterprise. And that means community must be not just for some of us, but for all of us in our society today. There are too many people who are being left out and left behind and being left to go it alone on their own. That is not community as a common enterprise. That is a community for some of us, not all of us. We have a choice in this country. You and I have a choice in this country in our lives. Is community only for those of us who look like us, is community for only those of us who have the same faith is community for only those of us who live on the same side of town or in the same neighborhood as us? Is community for only those who have as much money, who go to the same types of schools, who vote the way we vote?

Community as a common enterprise means that we are working collectively with a sense of common purpose, with common direction, using our common resources to ensure that we have common prosperity across our land. It's that simple. It's difficult to create. It's hard to get there. But the question is, do we only want to take the easy path? Or are we willing to get on the hard path? Because on the hard path, we all get to come along. We all have a shot at the American dream. On the hard path, we all get an opportunity to fulfill our God given potential. I think today is we watch the pain and anguish in our country, as we watch the disparities occurring because of this pandemic and disparities that existed long before this pandemic. As we watch the political crisis that has been coming for 30, 40, 50 years in our country. We have a choice. We can choose a hopeful, inclusive path in our society. And that means we need to make community a common enterprise.

And then last my last point today. The first one is about dignity. And the second is about hope. And the third is about making community a common enterprise. The fourth is about our history, about our history. I believe we need to come to grips with our history. We need to come to grips with our history. We have stains and original sins that began before the founding of this nation. We need to recognize this history. This history of racism and white supremacy. We need to own this history. And we need to account for this history.

We need to account for the systemic racism that still exists in our country. We need to account for the white supremacy that still exists and persists in this country. Too many of us, far too many of us do not know this history. It's not taught really in our schools. It's not taught in many of our homes. It's not taught in many of our faith institutions. It's not spoken about in many of our neighborhoods. It's time for us to know our history. We need to know our history. Too many of us seek to deny this history. When we do talk about it, we seek to pretend as if it didn't happen. Or if it happened, it wasn't as bad as some think. The reality is it is worse than we thought. And it's still happening today.

Too many of us give lip service to this history. We join in conversations about race relations. racism and systemic racism and talk about this history, and nod and smile and hug one another and sing Kumbaya together. But honestly, honestly, we're giving lip service to this history. We have to own our history. We have to recognize it, we have to own it, we have to account for it, we have to do something about it.

A great nation owns its history, and owns all of it, not just the good parts. Not just the myths, not just the traditions. It owns all of its history. Its complete history. Its whole history, the good, the bad, and the ugly. That is not a sign of weakness, as some people in our country like to talk about. And some like to say that if in fact you want to talk about this history and the stains and the original sins and the systemic racism and white supremacy and disparities that still exist in our country, they call you unpatriotic. I've got news for them. Patriotism means love of country. And love of country means that you are devoted to something so deeply that you are devoted and stick with it, even when you don't like it, especially when you don't like it. Look it up. It's in the dictionary, the definition of patriotism. And if we want to be true patriots, if we want to express true love of country, if we want to be truly devoted to the United States of America, then we need to own all of our history-as a sign of strength, a sign of love, of a sign of devotion, a sign of making our country better-and I believe we are a great nation. It's time that we recognize that and own it and do something about it.

We can do better in this country, we can be better. We don't have to bring out the worst in ourselves and each other, we can bring out the best in ourselves and each other. We have demonstrated this time and again, throughout our history, we have gotten better over time. But there is still much much work to be done, and we need to get on with it.

And so let's stick with this. Let's stay devoted to our country. Let's work through the challenges we face. And let's come out stronger. We're seeing the desire for this in the protests. These are not people who hate our country. These are people who are expressing their love of country and saying we can do better and we can be better and I stand with them. And we all need to stand with them. And so as I close I just want to say, remember that we need you. We need local leaders and other folks in our country who can ask us to step forward and turn outward to work together to build a better country, stronger communities.

And so my hope for you today is that as we face these crises in our country, that you don't turn away from one another, but turn toward one another and turn outward toward one another, and step forward. And let us engage with the crises that are upon us. And let us use this as an opportunity to demonstrate that we can be better and that we can do better and that we can live up to the promise of this great country.

Thanks for joining me, I hope if today's episode resonated with you that spoke to you that you will share it with your friends with your neighbors with your colleagues in your networks, I believe it's an important message for us today about who we can become to remind ourselves who we are and who we can become. So please share it with others. Go to our website, the Harwood institute.org. There are resources there for you. If you haven't already, buy my new book, Stepping Forward on amazon.com. And hopefully you'll join me next week at 4 PM Eastern Time for another episode of Turning Outward Together. Until then, stay in good health, being good spirits, be well. Thanks for joining me.