#89: "E Pluribus Pluribus"

I had to run an errand for work Thursday that took me out to Ridgewood, and my Juno driver took me on my first ever trip through the Queens Midtown Tunnel. As far as tunnels go it's absolutely nothing spectacular, and I've driven through others that I would more happily tell you about. But as we turned left off of Second Avenue, drive through the cashless toll system, I noticed an obelisk with the crest of the State of New York and the motto of the United States (and its English translation for dummies), E Pluribus Unum (or From Many, One).

I've known the motto of this country since I was a child, but it has never meant much to me. I've not stared down the face of real life adversity. I was born here, my parents and grandparents were born here, we all speak English, so obviously where I grew up we started out with that on our side. I don't remember knowing people that spoke a different language until I was in college. I didn't have to, want to, or try to assimilate into anything.

I really don't think our Founding Fathers meant for assimilation to happen either. They were from different colonies, and the colonies didn't always like each other. They were competing to survive in a new land and to survive a tyrannical king, and when they dispatched the king's army they didn't suddenly throw their arms around each other and say "we're all Americans from the United States." They kept saying "I'm from Virginia" or "I'm from Massachusetts" or wherever. They intended us to come together as a country for the common good but to retain that which we were.

Don't mistake my last sentence - I purposefully did not say "greater good," because sometimes what needs to be done has to be as good for everyone as possible, not the best for some people and not anywhere near the best for others.

Somewhere along the way that got all screwed up, and I think it happened pretty early. First it was hatred of the Irish, then the Italians, and then a roll call of other groups that honestly should turn your stomach. Each of these groups was reviled for hanging on to who they were because they were expected to become 'American.' They became citizens for sure, but did they ever truly become 'American?' Did we become one from many, or did we really become many huddled together for the common good?

This past week has been a tough one. For many reasons it's been easier to not ride my bike so I've been catching up on lots of podcasts, which seem to all be about how shitty, racist, and xenophobic our country has become. Serial has been focusing in on courts in Cleveland, and I'm sorry if you're from there, but the way they treat minorities there is mega-shitty and super racist. Radiolab discussed ranked voting and it's one of the many fixes to our system that you should all get behind (along with abolishment of the Electoral College, a House that grows in size as population grows so it has more than 435 members, and truly equal Senate representation based on population by dividing larger states into regions). This American Life did a show about how the Trump Administration is royally screwing up our immigration policies, and that policy is going to be bad for our country.

Oh, and we had an election where some good things happened (Democrats took back control of the House, won some governorships) and some not so good things happened (Republicans retained the Senate, they won some governorships). If we thought we were on the highway to fascism before, some parts of the country just decided to toss the keys to a reality TV star, put that car into gear, and floor it. No telling what we'll see when the tire smoke clears.

We're hopelessly divided. We are not the one from many that our motto hopes for. We are factions heading for a showdown and I don't like where it's headed. I'm going to make a mixtape for it, this first track kinda sums it up.