In a matter of weeks, we will have a different president. I don't know about you, but the last four years have been exhausing and I'm eager for the change of pace. However, after the chaos we've endured (and will continue to endure until Janauary 20, 2021), I feel we have reached a crossroad in this country-a reckoning-if you will.
I'm not talking about the scab that has been torn off our unjust, racist history. Every so-called "woke" mind in the country is struggling with the pain of that opened wound. How can it not, watching in real time a man being choked to death by a policeman hired to protect and to serve him while listening to him cry out to his dead mama.
The reckoning to which I'm referring is a reckoning with ignorance, specifically, civics and history ignorance. I'm also addressing the loss of civility that fear of the unknown and personal insecrities have unleashed enabling the lack of critical-thinking skills turn reason into absurdity.
Uniting Americans in a democratic society cannot be achieved if we do not offer an honest, factual education to all Americans about our shared history; if citizens continue to exist in bubbles never learning how democracy works to build thriving communities and the role they must play; and if media continues to give credence to "alternative" facts designed by selfish leaders to confuse and undermine truth and reality for personal gain.
We the people may have answered the call to elect a different president, but if we do not stay intellectually and politically engaged to do our job and push him to keep his word to fight for the soul of America, we will conintue down the path that leads away from the promise of a more perfect union as well as our individual constitutional right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. A reckoning indeed!
Alice Wilson-Fried, Author (www.alicewilsonfried.com)
ONE DROP
OUTSIDE CHILD
MENOPAUSE, SISTERHOOD AND TENNIS