america the beautiful...

you know, reading for class has had various effects on me in my tenure as a law student. i've been enraged, frustrated, confused, bored, disgusted, grateful, relieved, lost, but never ever EVER, until tonight, has anything i've read for a class made me cry.

you see, i'm taking a capital punishment class, and the assignment for tomorrow's class is primarily focused on illegal capital punishment, namely, lynching. i've just finished reading article after article giving accounts of angry white mobs tearing into jail cells to beat, stab, mutilate, shoot, and hang mostly young black men. also included in my course materials are photographs of lynchings -- burned, bloodied bodies hanging from trees -- too many of which have smiling white faces among the crowd below.

i can't believe this happened. i can't believe how incredibly horrible and inhumane we as a people can be. how dare we condemn anyone! how dare we judge! we are just as guilty, just as capable of murdering, torturing, dehumanizing our brothers and sisters. these are horrors that have been committed in the past 100 years -- we cannot bury them in the amnesia of the past.

today is the anniversary of the attacks on the world trade center towers and the pentagon. today is a time to stop and reflect on what it is that defines us as a nation. a real reflection -- an honest reflection -- reveals that we are flawed, we make mistakes, we have been known to act like the schoolyard bullies. our ancestors are slaves, members of lynch mobs, citizens of japanese descent who were interned in american camps during WWII, immigrants who faced extreme poverty, native americans whose homes were displaced, gays, lesbians, democrats, republicans, crazy pinko commies, crazy religious fundamentalists, folks who got it right, and folks who got it wrong.

and so where has it gotten us now? it has gotten us to the most perfect, the most ideal place to find ourselves -- in a moment where our history can inform us without dooming us to repeat it, in a moment where science can teach us to heal our sick and better take care of our natural resources, in a moment where our spirit of generosity can allow us to reach out to those who are less fortunate or whose lives have been touched by tragedy. we're in a time when there is nothing but opportunity to make good choices and be good people. even surrounded by despair, there is still a way to find a glimmer of hope.

and there you have it. there's my patriotism. i cannot help but mourn the mistakes that we have made, i am right now overwhelmed with a sadness at the atrocities that have taken place. but i would be a damn fool not to try and find something in those mistakes that can teach me about what i have control of right now, so that maybe i can leave things a little better in this world than they were when i found them. and for the ability to learn those lessons, i am truly grateful.