I saw on the news that George Newall died. For most people, including myself, this name is unfamiliar. It wasn’t until I read the footnote when I was saddened by this event. George was a composer for Schoolhouse Rock! In my childhood, my Saturday mornings were filled with short clips from Schoolhouse Rock interspersed within the regular cartoons. They were pockets of actual learning filled with smiles and committed to memory through a catchy tune.
On an otherwise ordinary trip to Target, I browse through the t-shirts and find a gem with the Schoolhouse Rock logo. I simply had to have it, and it’s among my favorite shirts. Though honestly, many times, I forget that I’m wearing it. On those days, I get unexpected smiles and compliments on it. People tell happy stories of their childhood, much like mine, filled with tunes that persist today in our memories. We don’t dread getting those songs stuck in our heads; we treasure them.
Though I enjoyed them all, I had a natural aptitude for mathematics. I enjoyed the ones on English and government the most. I can still hear the tunes in my head.
The Preamble to the Constitution
The episode that sticks to my mind the most is the one with the Preamble to the Constitution. That tune has persisted in my mind for literally decades. As a point of natural curiosity, I wondered how accurately they recited the original preamble. With the subtle exception of abridging the phrase “We, the people of the United States…” to “We, the people…” it is word by word the preamble. A musical artist setting these words to music still leaves me in awe, and they deserve all the credit for generations of people’s ability to recite it word for word.
The second such video that taught me about government was, the “I’m just a bill” clip. It too outlined the process by which Congress drafts bills, amend them, and hopefully eventually become law.
Twas in this sanitized world of idealism where I learned about government, and what we aspired to be and do.
Lawton Chiles and Richard Stone
In addition to learning about government from Schoolhouse Rock and the Civics class in school, I also indirectly studied for the exam to become naturalized – that is to become a US citizen. I say indirectly because I never took the test myself. My mom, who barely spoke English, aspired to become a US citizen, and in order to pass the exam, she needed to pass the test of literacy on our government. My mom needed my help to study and offered me some sort of toy once she passed the exam.
I proceeded to memorize the photocopied list of questions and answers. I grilled her over and over again to help her commit them to memory. It came easily to me; I already learned enough English to be functional. For my mom, English was still very much a foreign language, so she phonetically memorized the sounds of the questions and their responses. However, I don’t want to give you the impression that my mom didn’t know the nature of the questions. She absolutely did; she just didn’t speak English.
One of the questions was, “Who are the senators to our state of Florida?” Those two names are forever burned into my memory. I can’t reliably tell you the senators of my states at any time since then, but I can definitely tell you the above names. Another such question asked to name the three branches of government, which she absolutely could (legislative, executive, and judicial). I may not expect every US citizen to be able name them, but I fully expect Tommy Tuberville, who works in one of these three branches (and a former coach in a university) to name them. He couldn’t.
Does it even matter? Or worse, did I get it wrong?
My education about our country came from scattered pieces of information. Moreover, it was colored by the experiences of migrating to the United States and subsequently learning the language. I have developed ideas about what my role is in this country, civil rights, free speech and other elements that make up our lives here; many of those ideas would be labeled progressive. Naturally, those are at odds with many others in this country who would assert the opposite.
I know that I passionately believe in these ideals, but any sane person needs to at least entertain the idea that there’s another way. In other words, am I right? Are my ideas about civil rights and equity arbitrary? Are my opinions about civil rights, much like debating favorite ice cream flavors? Simply put, are responses like chocolate or vanilla (or coconut, in my case) simply preferences and not ultimately right or wrong?
Or worse, have I chosen poorly? Even in my passion for what I believe is right, am I mistaken? Historically, people have passionately supported ideas like:
- Segregated schools
- Segregated bathrooms
- Outlawing mixed marriages
- Disallowing blacks and female citizens the right to vote
Most of these have not aged well. However, are my ideals ‘wrong’? Of course, there are certain principles that lead me to believe I’m on the right path.
All men are created equal
It’s in the Declaration of Independence, though I’ll further rephrase this to all people are created equal. Though this may be more of a holdover from a country with royalty. Of course, we didn’t initially stick to these principles. We enslaved people, and as property they counted as only three-fifths of their owner.
However, the hypocrisy wouldn’t survive these ideals. Our citizens started as the oppressed and as such we understood, at least we did eventually. Until then we rationalized that we gave them ‘faith’ and that was enough to offset a lifetime of servitude. We allowed the thickness of our wallets to overrule the integrity of our ideals.
Though no one alive remembers slavery, however many of us lived through laws against mixed couples. The Lovings vs. Virginia ruling in 1967 banned these laws used to prosecute these couples, though at least one state (Alabama) still held similar laws on the books until 2000.
A more perfect union
If you start to climb Mount Everest and half your distance to the summit each day, you’ll never arrive. You’ll get very close, but you’ll never arrive. We call this converging.
Similarly, we knew that we didn’t get it right from the beginning. Our founding fathers did not claim to be prophets; their wisdom lies in their ability to acknowledge their mistakes. The preamble starts with “…in order to form a more perfect union…”; the ‘more’ implies that perfection is never completely attainable. The aspiration is to converge on perfection.
The Bill of Rights is the first ten amendments. An amendment is conceding that we didn’t get it right in the first place; we needed to change something.
…establish justice
The very next phrase in the preamble is to “establish justice”. This is not a question of establishing laws and enforcing them. On a grander level, we aspire to address the issue of fairness.
- We enslaved people; to enforce the law meant that kept people in servitude.
- We passed The Chinese Exclusion Act and prevented many Chinese immigrants from becoming citizens.
- We forbade the aforementioned mixed (white and black) couples from marrying.
We looked upon these laws and found that they were incompatible with our moral compass. None were abolished without any opposition. Each elicited a fight, even a war in one case. Each a tragic case of status quo bias, the predisposition to keep things the same.
E Pluribus Unum
We mint this phrase onto our coins. Yes, really… go check. It means “from many one”. Even the name of our country the United States is a combination of two common words. In our very name, we are a collection of distinct parts, but we have more in common than we have differences.
As I channel-grazed on a particular day, I happened upon a show called Finding Your Roots. This particular episode featured Don Lemon and Gretchen Carlson. They traced his genealogy to slaves; they traced hers to Swedish immigrants. What I found the most interesting? Unless you’re an Indigenous person, you came from elsewhere. Caucasian people in the United States are no exceptions; you too came from elsewhere.
To be bluntly honest, we invaded and commandeered the territory from those who were here. America wasn’t ‘discovered’. There were people already here, and they were well aware that it existed. The United States is a mutt country.
Our strength is our diversity. This is true for all meanings of the word: racial, cultural, religious, and yes… obviously even geographical diversity.
The first amendment
Naturally, most will assert it guarantees freedom of speech; others may include freedom of the press or assembly. However, we listed freedom of religion first. We explicitly and intentionally established our country as an areligious state; this is beyond contestation. Any attempts to hold Christianity in higher reverence than any other religion, say… Flying Spaghetti Monster, is misplaced.
Why do I explicitly name Christianity? Jews abstain from eating pork, but none deny it to others. During Ramadan, Muslims abstain from food during daylight hours, but none deny it to others. Christians abstain from homosexuality, yet some feel the need to obstruct and deny its practice to others.
And this leads me to…
I support civil rights, because none of us hold a higher standing in our country than anyone else. We are all indeed created equal.
I encourage change, because we can’t improve without it. If you use the word ‘progressive’ as a pejorative, understand that you literally oppose progress. Yes, that’s what it means.
I aspire for fairness, and it transcends law and order. As we culturally grow wiser, we learn that some standards are fundamentally unfair. Our moral compass demands we change them.
I understand that our strength lies in our diversity, in all its forms. We need to be different to accomplish great things, or we’d be like a football team with eleven quarterbacks.
I practice grace, and I allow others to practice theirs. I hope that grace universally starts with humility, generosity, and curiosity. Judgment and hate are incompatible with grace.
Those ideals are not only compatible with our principles, but they also align with our collective moral compass as we observe history. To impede progress simply because some need more time to grow accustomed to an idea (like gay marriage) is profoundly petty. Why deny others the same rights that we have to appease our sense of ‘comfort’? Let’s grow up, America.
As an interesting footnote, I nostalgically watched the Schoolhouse Rock! video for the Preamble to the Constitution. If you watch carefully around 2:25, you’ll see someone voting for names on a ballot to stress the importance of voting. One of those names is George Newall. 🙂