How to Make America Great Again

I was born in Sri Lanka in 1973 but I became an American citizen in 2014, at the Brooklyn Courthouse. I remember being in the crowd that day amongst people from dozens of countries. I remember the judge saying that this was the best part of his job, welcoming new immigrants into this country. I remember blinking back tears because America has always meant so much to me; its ideals and principles, and how so often it has backed them up with actions, not just words.

I don’t agree with a single thing Donald Trump says but I do see another meaning in his slogan ‘Make America Great Again’. You see, America has always been the greatest nation on earth not because of its military might and economic strength, but when it has stood up for the rights of everyone, not just a select few. It showed it when it entered two World Wars, fighting against real tyranny, fighting for strangers in countries many oceans away. It showed it when it stood up for civil rights in the Sixties ; it showed it when it legalized gay marriage in 2015, validating that #loveislove.

It has an endless capacity to reach deep into its soul and make a moral distinction about what is right and wrong; and then the strength and character to stand up and do the right thing, regardless of the consequences. This is the true American exceptionalism, the thing that made it such a source of inspiration to so many around the world.

And as my friend and co-author Bobby Jones pointed out, the ones doing that fighting were primarily the young; they were the ones on the front lines of the battlefield, they were the ones facing the firehorses and the police dogs, the ones on the picket lines and marches. They were the ones who were charged with the ‘fierce urgency of now’, the ones who had the courage to stand up for their ideals, even if it meant costing them their lives and their futures.

This week has made me mourn for that American courage; for it seems to have been replaced by fear. A fear of the Other, a polarizing, all-engulfing fear that has translated into brutal violence on the streets of Baton Rouge, Minnesota and Dallas. We have seen the damage caused by xenophobia and racial hatred in Britain, leading to the generational tragedy of Brexit. I dread to think about that same divisiveness tearing apart an America that also has more than 300 million guns in circulation. It is a recipe for disaster. And one that threatens to infect the optimism of the generations to come, the young who still have an idealism that believes that they can leave the world in a better place than how they found it.

I have a two-year old son who one day will be a young man of color in this country. And I don’t want him to grow up in a country where he could be the Tamir Rice of the future, the victim of decades of fear and suspicion between communities and police, of policies of force that militarize our streets.

It’s made me realize that we all have to get off the sidelines and do what we can. We cannot just leave it to the next generation, we cannot just leave it to the Other. So here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to support the work of Campaign Zero, who have the most comprehensively thought out package of policy solutions to ending policing violence in America, as well as trying to find ways to build relationships between police and communities, like the inspiring work my friend Tru Pettigrew is doing in his town of Cary, North Carolina. I’m going to try and find ways to use my skills to help the fight to bring common-sense gun safety legislation into place. And I’m going to help get out the vote this November, to help elect a President who I believe will support this de-escalation, and who will nominate a Supreme Court Justice who believes in the same goal of bringing peace and stability to this country.

America becomes great when it gets out of the rhetoric and the distrust, when it turns away from the generalizations into the specifics. It’s about the people, not the politics. It’s about actions, not hashtags. It’s about all of us doing whatever we can, and not retreating into our social media feeds of hopelessness and outrage. We are all citizens. We are all activists. We are all part of the solution.

We are how America becomes great again.

Find out more: Campaign Zero (http://www.joincampaignzero.org/solutions/)