Category: In The News

The following is written by my mother, my best friend and advocate always, love you mom –

Imagine: Thoughts on the Anniversary of An Insurrection   

by  Kathleen Amoia

I think there are many reasons we are at this inflection point in our democracy. Some are the result of anger at government failures in the face of major societal changes, some self-indulgent ignorance, some opportunist power grabs, some racist and misogynist. Another reason, I believe,  is a general failure of imagination that includes most of us.

Too many of us are playing with the idea of losing our democracy as if it has no intrinsic value to our daily lives. Too many play with the idea of secession as if it could be an easy and successful separation, no harm, no foul, a mulligan of sorts. Many are considering forever contesting election results without proof of fraud, of denying the vote to major segments of our citizenry without imagining the pushback, considering letting elected officials go unpunished for treason without imagining what that means for good governance and the rule of law. Many rant and rave over manipulated petty outrages of no  consequence while ignoring growing authoritarianism, a three year pandemic, and the existential threat of climate change. Do look up, imagine the proverbial asteroid (  democracy, voting rights, climate change). It is right over our heads.

We flirt with fascism and the power grabbers are thrilled. Imagine them without constraints on their greed, their ability to corrupt the courts, to buy every election forever. Imagine another fascist inclined president whose sycophants have learned how to pull off a coup. Imagine what would have happened if Pence had in fact been killed and the fascist in the White House had declared martial law and just remained in power. What then? What would fighting, blood in the streets, vigilante justice, mob rule  look and feel like? What is it like when a nation, afraid and weary of death, destruction, and economic chaos , turns to the strongman and accepts whatever he demands in exchange for peace. And yes, promises the trains will run on time. They won ‘t. Imagine and don’t think for a minute it could not happen here.

Imagine we are halfway to being Russia on steroids. We are bigger, we are armed to the teeth, and we are being taught to hate each other. We are richer, there is more to be grabbed by the corrupt and those they favor. Let’s imagine it all until it scares us sufficiently to get serious about the work that has to be done to save this fragile democracy. Let’s imagine what would be lost and perhaps never regained.

Let’s imagine we like most of our fellow Americans and the democracy we were blessed with, imperfect but so much better than fascism. Let’s protect the vote and use it to elect decent, informed men and women who want to lead for the right reasons and have the innate decency and courage to do so.

Imagine that!

Mr. President, Dr. Biden, Madam Vice President, Mr. Emhoff, Americans and the world, when day comes we ask ourselves where can we find light in this never-ending shade? The loss we carry asea we must wade. We’ve braved the belly of the beast. We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace. In the norms and notions of what just is isn’t always justice. And yet, the dawn is ours before we knew it. Somehow we do it. Somehow we’ve weathered and witnessed a nation that isn’t broken, but simply unfinished. We, the successors of a country and a time where a skinny black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother can dream of becoming president only to find herself reciting for one.

And yes, we are far from polished, far from pristine, but that doesn’t mean we are striving to form a union that is perfect. We are striving to forge our union with purpose. To compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters, and conditions of man. And so we lift our gazes not to what stands between us, but what stands before us. We close the divide because we know to put our future first, we must first put our differences aside. We lay down our arms so we can reach out our arms to one another. We seek harm to none and harmony for all. Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true. That even as we grieved, we grew. That even as we hurt, we hoped. That even as we tired, we tried that will forever be tied together victorious. Not because we will never again know defeat, but because we will never again sow division.

Scripture tells us to envision that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree and no one shall make them afraid. If we’re to live up to her own time, then victory won’t lie in the blade, but in all the bridges we’ve made. That is the promise to glade, the hill we climb if only we dare. It’s because being American is more than a pride we inherit. It’s the past we step into and how we repair it. We’ve seen a forest that would shatter our nation rather than share it. Would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy. This effort very nearly succeeded.

But while democracy can be periodically delayed, it can never be permanently defeated. In this truth, in this faith we trust for while we have our eyes on the future, history has its eyes on us. This is the era of just redemption. We feared it at its inception. We did not feel prepared to be the heirs of such a terrifying hour, but within it, we found the power to author a new chapter, to offer hope and laughter to ourselves so while once we asked, how could we possibly prevail over catastrophe? Now we assert, how could catastrophe possibly prevail over us?

We will not march back to what was, but move to what shall be a country that is bruised, but whole, benevolent, but bold, fierce, and free. We will not be turned around or interrupted by intimidation because we know our inaction and inertia will be the inheritance of the next generation. Our blunders become their burdens. But one thing is certain, if we merge mercy with might and might with right, then love becomes our legacy and change our children’s birthright.

So let us leave behind a country better than one we were left with. Every breath from my bronze-pounded chest we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one. We will rise from the gold-limbed hills of the West. We will rise from the wind-swept Northeast where our forefathers first realized revolution. We will rise from the Lake Rim cities of the Midwestern states. We will rise from the sun-baked South. We will rebuild, reconcile and recover in every known nook of our nation, in every corner called our country our people diverse and beautiful will emerge battered and beautiful. When day comes, we step out of the shade aflame and unafraid. The new dawn blooms as we free it. For there is always light. If only we’re brave enough to see it. If only we’re brave enough to be it.

Amanda Gorman – Inaugural Poet