John,
I wanted to take a personal moment to wish you a happy 4th of July. I know it can feel a little hard to celebrate this year – our country feels more divided than it has in a long time. The fractures aren’t just partisan; they cut deeper, into questions about who we are and what kind of country we want to be. It’s not just that the other side sees things differently; it’s that they’re actively taking a wrecking ball to our democratic institutions, kicking millions of people off their health care, tossing human beings into detention centers that resemble concentration camps, and walking away from America’s role as a force for good in the world.
Our grief and our anger isn’t as much about a difference in policies but rather a difference in the type of country we want to be: are we truly in pursuit of policies that aid in providing the opportunity to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to all, or are we a country of cruelty, promising life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to those who can afford it?
Like many of you, I worry that we’re far too rapidly heading down the latter to ever be able to reverse it. But on days like today, I throttle between grief and hope. I think of the people who stood up when it was hardest and pulled this country back from the brink. People like Coretta Scott King, who carried on the work of a movement even in the wake of profound personal loss, and Dolores Huerta, who built power for working families when it seemed impossible. I think of young people who have consistently protested in the name of justice and challenged the country to live up to its highest ideals.
I think of Frances Perkins, the first woman to serve in a presidential cabinet, who ushered in the 40-hour work week, minimum wage, and Social Security in defense of working people. These women—and so many others—prove that heroism in America doesn’t always wear a uniform or come from a place of privilege. It comes from ordinary people doing extraordinary things in defense of justice. I think of Ulysses S. Grant ( my favorite president), a general who had the moral clarity and courage to crush the Confederacy and later used the power of the presidency to fight for Reconstruction and civil rights.
America’s heroes don’t come from up on high; today, I celebrate the hero you see every day in the mirror. We need you to run for office. We need you to find a candidate or cause you believe in and give an hour or two a week to it. We need you to talk to your friends and family. We need you to be nice and practice strength through kindness. We need you to keep hope and to be relentlessly and stubbornly optimistic about the future.
You are the promise of this country, and you are what we celebrate today on this solemn day as we recommit ourselves to taking this amazing, beautiful, and frustrating country back from those who wish to diminish it.
This country is imperfect and that’s always been the point from the get-go – our charter is, as always, to build “a more perfect union.” We’ve been down dark paths before, and, sure, it feels harder than it has in a long time.
But together, we will prevail. Let’s go give ‘em hell.
- Shad Murib
