The walls that make America

So, over the last several years many of us with privilege have learned some painful lessons about our country. One of the lessons we have learned is that a portion of our population still responds to racist dog whistles, and ahead of all of their own interests, they would rather support someone holding that whistle than have lower drug prices, wealth equity, an environment not under threat by continuing to favor fossil fuels and by rolling back basic protections, affordable higher education for everyone, healthcare, and infrastructure. 

That’s a short list of the things that aren’t as important as answering that whistle like a lap dog. The promise of a big and beautiful wall to keep us safe from poor and desperate brown people who are coming to steal our jobs, get free stuff, commit crimes and drive down wages is like a beacon—calling to that shining city on the hill—the city that keeps out anyone who doesn’t look or speak like us.

Some walls protect us, while others destroy us.

There are so many things that we have learned. 

Of course, these are lessons plenty of black Americans have known almost since birth. They have lived their entire lives behind the walls those of us with privilege have either built or allowed to remind them, every day, that they are second class citizens at best, or subhuman at worst. These same walls stand high as mothers teach their sons they will be held to a much higher standard by police officers than their white counterparts if they must interact with police officer, because they may not come home again. These same walls stand as obstacles to the access to quality education and healthcare whites enjoy. 

Some of us with privilege have started to wipe away the hazy sleep from our eyes—not because we have earned the label of being woke,” but because we suddenly feel threatened by walls ourselves. 

Women have lived all of their lives behind a wall of inequality. We have lived being paid less for the same work as our male counterparts. We have been blamed for violence perpetrated against us, because somehow there are a million ways in which we ask to be violated and harmed—even if we are simply walking down a sidewalk. We have lived with the additional threat that we have no autonomy over our own bodies and what happens to them. Our worth and our position in society dictates that we are not entitled to the same rights and freedom from discrimination and harm as men—even while we are not asking for more than they are able to take for granted. We thought we had made progress, but we learned that walls can go up very quickly. 

Same sex couples have lived their lives behind the walls of discrimination and exclusion and struggling to acquire the basic rights other couples take for granted. They have fought to have the right to marry the people they love, to be able to adopt children, share property, and access spousal employment benefits. And that’s just a short list. In recent years, same sex couples had attained some of the rights they had been fighting for, but they have seen that there will always be someone standing ready to rebuild walls.

Americans of the LGBTQ community have lived their lives behind the wall of fear of being harmed, being unable to access necessary healthcare, being fired from their jobs, being unable to access and retain housing, and having equal access to education without discrimination. Transgender women of color are particularly at a higher risk of being the targets of violent crime or death. The tide of legal discrimination was very slowly beginning to turn. An end of the discriminatory “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy in our military had finally come. Very quickly an open ban on transgender Americans serving in our armed forces reminded us that the walls that were being dismantled could go right back up. 

Americans outside of the Christian faith have unexpectedly found themselves living behind the walls of fear that they will be discriminated against, targeted with violence while in their places of worship or wearing traditional garments associated with their faiths, and being believed to be anti-American or potentially threatening to others. The promise of freedom of religion was a wall that Americans of different faiths believed they could count on, but along with the threat of violence, many saw the wall solidified when loved ones hoping to emigrate or seek refuge were banned from America’s promise of freedom. 

These are some of the walls we decide to maintain when we support the ideals of fear of “the other,” superiority over people of color, women, anyone who is not “heteronormative,” or Christian. These are the walls that guard us from the original promise and potential of America. 

As we think about American walls, there is one wall that we seemingly have decided not to care about or fight for. It’s a wall that was designed to protect everyone in our nation from tyranny, oppression and abuse by our leadership when it deigns to put its own power over its obligation to and its oath of service. It’s a wall that was designed to help our leaders protect us from foreign invasion, foreign political interference, and to keep our democracy safe and intact.

This week, people we voted for have the power to make sure this wall continues to stand—that it continues to mean something. This week, people we voted for have the power to decide whether the efforts of our founders to create structures, limits and boundaries in place to balance powers are still relevant, or if they are so worthless that they should be ignored and kicked to the curb with all the other extraneous garbage we no longer care about. 

When our leadership wraps itself in the luxe and engulfing embrace of power, and allows that power to do what we know power can do—corrupt its intentions and tempt it to actions in direct contradiction to the structures, limits and boundaries, the people we voted for have a duty. 

Why is action so urgent that the people we voted for not pursue enforcing subpoenas through the courts? Why is patience a travesty in this situation? Quite simply, it’s because failure to act ensures that our next election will be tainted by the scandal of foreign interference—again. And this time, it will be at the direct and explicit invitation of our president. Allowing that to stand allows everything else to fall.

This week the  wall—our Constitution—is swaying in the breeze of a potentially powerful wind. 

What will they do? Will they answer to the better angels of our nature—the framers of that wall—or listen to the intoxicating whispers of the demon that threatens to destroy the foundation—the whispers of their own power? 

We should all be afraid of the looming and likely answer.