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How to Really Make America Great Again
Editorial photo: shutterstock.com
PARTICIPATING IN DEEP NATIONAL HEALING
BY JASON F. MCLENNAN
If we’re really serious about making America great again, then the path starts through reconciliation.
Sitting in the Big House (a traditional indigenous community gathering building) in Gwa-yasdums on Gilford Island along with a group of leaders from across the region and beyond, I listen to Chief Robert Joseph (Bobby Joe) of the Gwawaenuk First Nation in British Columbia speak about Canada’s process of Reconciliation and what it means.
He speaks about reconciliation with the Canadian Government and about the experience of the residential schools. This sad chapter in Canadian history dishonored whole communities and ancient cultural practices and brutally separated families in order to force language, religion and a different culture on first nations people across the country. As if the intended cultural genocide wasn’t enough, abuse was rampant in the residential schools, and the treatment of students dehumanizing. Bobby Joe lived through that process and has emerged as one of the most influential and eloquent speakers around healing and reconciliation.
-Chief Robert Joseph
Yet when he spoke there was no anger in his voice. Only love, wisdom and perspective. When he finished there wasn’t a dry eye in the house. Reconciliation is a way of living and being he said, and through his message I began to truly understand what he meant. When we fundamentally come to terms as a people and nation with our past, it is not a passive thing; it is not merely apologizing or acknowledging past wrongs but instead a process of deep systemic healing. And it isn’t something that is done “for them” it is something that we do for “us.” The healing process is for all of us—the culture that has suffered, but also for the culture that has imposed itself and caused the suffering. And it is an ongoing, living process, not a once and done spectacle.
A process of reparations and mature national dialogue starts with an acknowledgement of a different view of history: that America is only ‘great’ because it was built on the back of a lot of suffering, exploitation, genocide, racism and environmental degradation.
What surprised me the most as I experienced Chief Robert Joseph’s words, was how deeply they affected me. As someone who already supported the idea of reconciliation, having seen how reparations and reconciliation processes in New Zealand were strengthening the culture there, I was not prepared for how powerfully impactful bringing the process home in my heart to my own country, reflecting on my own nation’s history would be.
And yet, this article is not about Canada, it is about the United States – a wonderful country that I have called home now for longer than I lived in Canada. A country where I have built a life, family and career. And a country that perhaps more than any other in the world, needs to come to grips with its past and to build an authentic and sustained process of reconciliation with multiple cultures and people from whom the American Dream has been withheld.
As a Canadian who has now lived in the US for 27 years, married an American, and founded businesses here, I have really begun to understand this country. I love the people, the culture, and the innovation. But I also cringe at many other things. In some of the stories Americans tell themselves, I see alarming, propagandist national myths. Every nation has them, but the USA’s are particularly strong— perhaps directly proportional to this country’s wealth and power.
Canadians are the perfect observers of American culture, especially “clean cut” Caucasian Canadians like me. It’s like being invited into the backroom; people assume I’m American—I look and sound American—and as a fellow white male they let down their guard fully. I’ve been privy to goings on in the business world that would shock and upset a lot of people; I’ve heard the locker room talk and the true state of commerce, and yes, the very real white privilege that exists.
Native American tribes came together in 2016 in unprecedented solidarity to protest the Dakota Access Pipeline.
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There is shocking white privilege in this country. Yet, since I am Canadian and not American, when I go abroad, I also get a true sense of how other nations view America. “Oh, your Canadian, I thought you were American,” they say, and then they proceed to tell me what they really think of the United States.
I do think this is one of the greatest countries in the world, perhaps one of the greatest in modern history. There is much to be proud of, and yet almost every nation cringes at the rhetoric that routinely comes out of the US political landscape about just how superior this country is or was depending on which mythology is being championed. But what is generally left unsaid, is the US is a country with a deeply checkered past and troubling mythologies that hold it back by propagating significant pain and division, manifesting nowadays politically.
For America to truly be “great again” (to play on the crazy rhetoric of the Trump campaign tagline), it needs to examine the excessive white male privilege that is ingrained within its institutions and cultural norms. The false nostalgia for social simplicity with cultural norms and institutions that prop up that privilege are the very qualities that have diminished America and keep it from greatness today. These are also the very qualities of the American empire that trouble most of the world.
The Black Lives Matter and Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women social justice campaigns have brought attention to basic social inequities that plague America today: racism and the intersection of racism and violence against women.
From my vantage, to truly make America great requires beginning a deep process of healing and reconciliation that can only be done through a sustained, honest and at times painful dialogue that truly recognizes the injustice of the past and present, and acknowledges how these injustices continue to affect its people today.
A process of reparations and mature national dialogue starts with an acknowledgement of a different view of history: that America is only “great” because it was built on the back of a lot of suffering, exploitation, genocide, racism and environmental degradation. The US is the world’s top empire currently. Empires are only ever built on the backs of people and the environment; that is a core part of the definition of empire because it requires the dominance of multiple cultures and peoples with a centralized ideology and power structure. America isn’t unique in this regard. Exploitation is the M.O. of any dominant empire, and the British, Spanish, French, Portuguese (to name a few) have modeled this to devastating global effect in pursuit of the far-flung empires they controlled—including, of course, this country. A lot of this suffering stemmed from Europe, and these countries need their own major processes of reconciliation. But it was carried on willingly and ruthlessly by Americans for the next couple centuries.
True greatness and the realization of many of America’s healthiest and loftiest ideals will only be realized through a new, authentically honest national dialogue about its past and an honest accounting of who was held down so that others could be lifted up. Emerging from that dialogue we’ll need a multi-decade process of active reparations and reconciliations—the process through which a whole nation can greatly heal from its past, honor and acknowledge who has suffered the most, and advance the nation together as a whole.
New Zealand as we know it today had a similar colonial start as part of the British empire, whereby a white, Christian culture subdued native peoples and took over another cultural tradition entirely. Recently, New Zealand has invested in the kind of process of healing I am promoting the US undertake. Their reconciliation process has resulted in a more beautiful, culturally rich nation. It’s not perfect, and they would admit they have a long way to go, but it’s bringing cultures together in a new and regenerative way.
The Australian “welcome to country” that opens every meeting and discussion in that colonial country is a constant acknowledgement that reconciliation is not done once and forgotten, but is a living tradition of respect, apology, forgiveness, and unity. More recently, Canada has begun this journey of reconciliation, which has included returning significant native lands to indigenous control and admitting to and apologizing for terrible policies enacted on first nations people, like the horrific policy of residential schools and reservations.
Reconciliation in the US will perhaps be a more nuanced and complex undertaking than in most countries where the need exists; the legacy of pain is wide and deep and multifaceted here. The complexity and daunting nature of the issues here result in a nation that generally skirts around the issues at best or denies them altogether. Avoidance is an immature and dangerous trend to carry in the national psyche decade after decade, as it allows for extreme and dangerous views to stay alive that manifest as hate crimes and violence. It also means that the country is at risk of toggling between two ends of an unhealthy spectrum: unapologetic racism on one end and a hyper sensitive political correctness on the other. While the latter approach may at times serve to shine a light on the right issues, it also tends to paralyze and polarize by using shame and blame instead of unity, forgiveness and love.
This country has had its moments of greatness. Perhaps America will find its next MLK: someone who can lead the nation in the kind of honesty that will elevate it to true greatness where the rights and freedoms of all people are upheld, and ideas and values worth emulating are advanced, perhaps finally approaching what its framing documents set forth as aspirational.
I don’t know if this leader should be black, white, brown or yellow, man or woman or transgendered. I do know that white men of substance— those who still represent the culture and gender that has benefited the most from the exploitation of minorities—will have to step up in large numbers. This reconciliation process requires establishing a sustained movement, building on the momentum of various recent social justice campaigns like Black Lives Matter and the Womxn’s March, that somehow reaches across the aisle in a more fulsome, complete, and deep manner. It should not be the black community alone proclaiming that Black Lives Matter; it should not be women alone marching in the streets for gender equality. It is imperative that those who have historically held them back—privileged white men— join in these causes.
Reparations do not mean that any single individual today is responsible for the actions of their ancestors. I am not suggesting people should feel shame and guilt and despise their own history in order to elevate the history and culture of historically oppressed peoples. I am quite proud of my Scottish and French heritage! Trading negative energy for negative energy will not be generative. Looking to the past for reparations is an act of healing, whereby we can truly acknowledge the pain inflicted by our ancestors on other people. This reflection is not mutually exclusive with being proud of the many wonderful things our culture has produced. Maturity requires we sit with this nuance and complexity. History happened. It must be acknowledged and stripped of the kind of energy and power that has held this nation back in so many critical ways while no longer allowing it to be forgotten or brushed under the rug. Part of that process requires recognizing the patterns and shackles that still exist today and a willingness to break cycles that continue to repeat and hold many back.
Currently, because of the unacknowledged pain and lack of reconciliation, a healthy conversation about race in America doesn’t exist. Here people can’t talk about race without being labeled racist, and so they don’t. In America, people can’t share their experiences freely without touching places of unspoken anger and resentment. In America, everything gets labeled and pushed to one side of a political or social or racist divide or another. Mansplaining, whitesplaining, blacksplaining—these words are effectively ending fledgling dialogue by negating the legitimacy of the contributions of entire groups of people around issues that affect us all. This is not the hallmark of maturity or greatness. America can do better.
1944—These four pilots flew domestic routes in World War II with the Women’s Airforce Service Pilots, whose mission was to relieve their male counterparts of domestic duties for overseas combat. Stories like this demonstrate admirable American mythologies worth celebrating and emulating.
Public Domain and courtesy of the Department of Defense.
America should embrace the path of reconciliation fully because we are stronger together, we are more resilient together, and we are greater—indeed only great— together. America is great because of its diversity, its immigrant history and its roots as a haven: “Bring me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses.” These words have been forgotten. Too many falsely imagine themselves as the original inhabitants of a land that was in fact stolen from other peoples. They imagine a culture that couldn’t have been created— American food, music, art, clothing— without the contributions of people from all corners of the world.
Reconciliation requires we reexamine the dangerous or unhealthy mythologies that hold this country back. I believe the US is easily the most mythologically based culture in the world, rich with stories about individualism, manifest destiny, the role of faith in society, consumerism and consumption, American exceptionalism, self-protection vs. community protection, etc. In my opinion, each of these stories weaken the nation and undermine other healthier mythologies that should be nurtured and held as core to what it means to be American. What are the mythologies we should champion? If you must have mythologies, these are some good ones: this country’s wonderful ability to create community, its unmatched levels of volunteering and charity, its incredible entrepreneurial spirit and plucky can do attitude, its sense of justice and obligation to safeguard all people’s inalienable rights and freedoms, its intolerance of bullies and willingness to protect the few from the many, its belief in merit based achievement, its understanding of the need for a separation of church and state— many of the original ideas of the founders, really.
So, where do we begin? Anywhere might be fine and multiple places at once, too. We might consider building a reconciliation in chronological order, beginning with reconciliation and reparations made towards the indigenous peoples of this country. There must be a public reckoning of the genocide, the cultural appropriations, the outright theft and murder, of millions of people who were the first inhabitants of this land. Land grabs and relegation to marginalized places, broken treaties and the decimation of cultures, knowledge and language— these atrocities take many, many generations to recover from. And healing cannot begin until the ongoing diminishment, debasement, and lack of respect afforded to our first nations people in this country is acknowledged and reversed. The truth needs to be held in the sunlight and taught to our children for years, not hours.
Reconciliation needs to then transition to Reparations. The first step in repairing right relationship with America’s indigenous peoples is to begin honoring the treaties we’ve made with these sovereign nations. This restores dignity to these nations and lays the groundwork for the repair of our relationships. We now have many examples of what the process of reconciliation and reparations might look like. No approach is perfect, but we have much to learn from the world in this regard. Looking to South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Committee that guided that nation through a healing process from the devastating effects of Apartheid, and to New Zealand, Australia, and Canada’s reconciliation processes with their indigenous populations will provide us with frameworks and lessons on what has worked and what has not.
From the book Revelations of a Slave Smuggler, published in 1860. Illustrated here is the hold of the slave ship Gloria.
There then needs to be a reconciliation with African Americans, and an acknowledgement of the brutal history of slavery that built this country and still echoes here today in the form of violence, upheaval, vicious racism, and the marginalization and segregation of black families. Again, the admission of the ongoing racial profiling, policies of incarceration, and economic injustices suffered by African Americans is foundational to repairing relationships.
Next, we need a reconciliation with the Mexican and Hispanic people of this nation—an acknowledgement that much of the United States was taken by force from others who had begun to build a nation in huge areas now within the United States. Recognizing the broad and rich history of Texas, California, New Mexico, Arizona, and how a lack of acknowledgement of wrongdoing continues to fuel racist policies of immigration and attitudes towards Hispanic people is again necessary.
Once a healthy reparation and reconciliation is in progress, it will become easier to acknowledge all aspects of a history: how Asians were brought over in the 1880s for cheap and dangerous labor and simultaneously marginalized, and how wave after wave of various immigrants from eastern Europe, the middle east, and Asia have been mistreated. This can then lead to an honest acknowledgement of American foreign policy, especially since WWII, when the US’s global empire took its full shape. For many nations on the receiving end of disastrous US foreign policies, in which we’ve interfered in unscrupulous and immoral ways for political gain, we represent the very opposite of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” espoused in our founding documents. Living with the complexity of admitting to our faults while simultaneously celebrating all the wonderful ways America has made the world better— like its role in ending WWII—is a difficult but necessary step in maturing as a nation.
Reconciliation with Mexican and Hispanic peoples requires a hard look at racist immigration policies today.
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The Womxn’s March in the United States in January 2017 saw as many as 5 million people take to the streets across the country with a simple message: women’s rights are human rights.
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Finally, a true process of reconciliation must cross from discussions of race and nation to gender and gender orientation, with a full acknowledgement that women, who have also built this nation, have done so while having to bear the burden of servitude, violence and marginalization.
This is not a clarion call to collective shame. You do not tear yourself down when you acknowledge the past, you build everyone up equally together. This recognition is a prerequisite to building a more perfect union. There is white privilege because of history, because of things our ancestors in this country did. We’ve inherited privileges at the expense of many. White Americans can still stand tall and proud of so many things and can maintain pride in their ancestors’ positive accomplishments, good deeds, great inventions, and achievements. The many kindnesses and acts of compassion from our history deserve celebration and emulation. For here is a fundamental truth: all peoples, all around the world, have done good things and bad, saintly things and ghastly things. Much is lost to history, but no race or culture has a perfect or entirely imperfect record of deeds. In this country, right now, these are the issues and the history that is undealt with and must be addressed. This is the path to greatness for the earnest and dominant world empire.
Chief Robert Joseph addressing the Sea to Cedar Summit group in the Big House in the village of Gwa-yas-dums on Gilford Island in May.
Brodie Guy
For more information on Chief Robert Joseph’s work, visit the Reconciliation Canada website: https:// reconciliationcanada.ca/about/team/chief-dr-robertjoseph/.
JASON F. McLENNAN is a highly sought out designer, consultant and thought leader. Prior to founding McLennan Design, Jason authored the Living Building Challenge – the most stringent and progressive green building program in existence, and founded the International Living Future Institute. He is the author of six books on Sustainability and Design including the Philosophy of Sustainable Design, “the bible for green building.”
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