America at 250 is still trapped by racism from the government itself

Like most Americans, I attended the celebration of America’s 250th birthday. I found this figure quite remarkable to think about. On the one hand, America is 250 years old and has a lot of history. America, on the other hand, is still a baby compared to many other countries. I found myself having to stop and think about what it was about this number that bothered me. Two hundred and fifty years.

Then the answer came to me. Two hundred and fifty years also shows how race has long played a role in this nation and still does. Those who say race is as much a part of America as apple pie are not entirely wrong. We may not let the Klan roam the streets, but I’m not talking about that kind of racism. I’m talking about state-sponsored racism. Our government has always tipped the scales when it comes to race. I find myself asking on America’s 250th birthday: Will we ever be free from our own government’s use of race to divide us?

Here on the South Side, people like to point to redlining and blockbuster news to explain what’s happening to our neighborhoods. And they were real and he was wrong. But this explanation ends in the 1950s, as if nothing had happened afterwards. Most of the things that devastated this society happened after the 1960s, not backwards. Far from these streets, one well-intentioned program after another, designed by people who have never had to live with the consequences, has managed to produce vast amounts of white virtue and precious little opportunity for the people who live here. I’ve been watching the wreckage of that experiment all my life. And this is what I learned: There is no solution to be found in race. We cannot find our mind in our skin.

AMERICA’S NEXT 250 YEARS DEPEND ON PASSING FAITH AND FREEDOM TO OUR CHILDREN

When I think about America turning 250, I realize that that number is heavier than a birthday should be. There’s a race in America that’s two hundred and fifty years old, and people still continue to shove it down our throats, as if that’s the only lens through which we can see through each other. I know that it is not the power of race that will save a single child from these streets. These children are human beings before they are races, and claiming otherwise is racist. They are individuals with their own minds, their own souls, and their own God-given talents. But by nurturing that individual seed, one child at a time, we give them the only gift that truly matters: the freedom to be who they are, rather than a statistic attributed to their skin.

There will always be people who resist such progress, who need race to remain at the center of the conversation, because it is not development, not talent, not opportunity, but race where their power lives. It’s been this way for 250 years and I see no sign of it slowing down. So it’s up to us. We must be the ones to resist this. We must be the ones to claim the American birthright of the individual and stop surrendering our lands to those who benefit from dividing us.

Our government has always tipped the scales when it comes to race. I find myself asking on America’s 250th birthday: Will we ever be free from our own government’s use of race to divide us?

We’ve given up too much ground for too long, and that surrender is a big part of how we got here; a decline that, left unanswered, shows no signs of stopping on its own.

AMERICA’S NEXT 250 YEARS BEGINS IN CLASSROOMS

My answer on this 250th birthday is: Invest in opportunity as we invest in crisis.

In this neighborhood, when things break, a window breaks, violence breaks out, cameras come out, suddenly a race hustler appears and money appears. Suddenly there is urgency. Suddenly everyone agreed that something had to be done as soon as possible. But the investment made before the crisis, the investment in a child’s future before they pick up a gun or give up school, never seems to carry the same urgency. We will spend it on emergencies every time. And we hesitate about the opportunity to improve.

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I think about the community center we spent years building on the South Side, almost ready to open its doors. This building looks like an opportunity when you invest in it before the crisis, not after. This is a bet on the abilities, minds and futures of individual children, not a program built around their race. And I wholeheartedly believe that a tiny fraction of the money this nation spends to celebrate its last 250 years could transform the next 250 years for neighborhoods like this, if we spend it the same way: on believing individual people in a crisis before having to prove it.

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This is the birthright in America that I want for these children. Not a hyphen. It’s not a category. It’s not a box checked on someone else’s form. It is the same pursuit of happiness that this country promised 250 years ago, earned through their own talents, their own will, and their own perseverance.

We are the first and only Americans.

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