I Still Wish You Well

What is success?

In America, where the term is drummed into our ears from childhood, the question’s rhetorical. It’s woven deeply into our national ethos and mythos — so much so that one can hardly begin to talk about the United States without mentioning the word or something related to it.

Just today, while listening to a story on the radio about the quintessential American sitcom (“I Love Lucy”), the show’s executive producer Desi Arnaz told the quintessential “Only in America” story — that he came to our shores from Cuba “without a cent in (his) pocket” (his words) but found success in the “land of the free and the home of the brave.”

Americans love a success story, especially when it happens here. It confirms our belief that if you work hard enough and do the right thing, you too can go from “rags to riches.” You, too, can be like Desi Arnaz.

Of course, most of us know (to borrow from George Gershwin) that “it ain’t necessarily so,” especially those of us who trend toward the left side of the political spectrum. We know hard work and honesty may be more liability than an asset. In a nation where wealth and influence is unparalleled, we know that tens of millions of people live below the poverty line, that wages remain relatively stagnant and haven’t kept up with cost of living expenses, and food scarcity is a consistent reality for 1 in 7 children in the republic.

I’m inclined to wonder if the United States has been a successful nation and, by extension, what success actually is.

Is a nation that prides itself on freedom, liberty, and justice for all a success when it has the highest rate of incarcerated? Is a nation, quick to boast of its unparalleled wealth, a success when (as of 2015) 20 of its richest have more than its poorest half (more than 150 million)? Can a nation that extols inclusivity claim to be so as the rate of hate crimes spiked in the last year and shows little signs of slowing down?

It’s hard for me to answer in the affirmative — which is why I and other leftists tend the be the loudest and most consistent critics of the United States. More patriotic segments of the populus have cast socialists, communists, and anarchists as America hating rabble rousers — a phrase many leftists would gladly affirm. Private wealth, after all, is counter to the left’s goals and closely associated with the American Dream.

It is hard for any red, myself included, to enthusiastically put their respective hand over their heart and loudly sing “The Star-Spangled Banner” if the situation calls for it. I found myself in that situation for the first time when I was at a baseball game and the obligatory performance of the national anthem occurred before the first pitch (I am a relative newcomer to the left). You know the flag that you face during each performance has become a symbol of fear and loathing abroad — and as a person of color, I was reminded in that moment of the words of James Baldwin -

“…the flag to which you have pledged allegiance, along with everybody else, has not pledged allegiance to you.”

And yet I still want the United States to succeed. The last thing I want is to see the republic descend into further chaos, despair, and division. Though I don’t plan on joining the national Army for ideological and physical reasons (having asthma, poor eyesight, and possible flat feet do not a good soldier make), promoting the general welfare is still something worth fighting and even dying for in my eyes.

After all, I live here. Most of my family and friends live here. I was born in a “certain crucible” (to quote Baldwin once more) and in that crucible I’ll more than likely spend the rest of my years.

But I am still ill at ease with present circumstances and I intend to fight against them with every fiber of my being.

And I suppose that brings me back to the question with which I started: what is success? And by extension is America a successful nation?

If America is to be a success, as far as I’m concerned, it must:

• Foster a society in which no one goes without the bare essentials — including food, water, shelter, clothing, access to useful health care and a decent education.
• Give people the opportunity to give according to their ability — in which all people are empowered to use their talents or learned crafts — so that the first point may be accomplished (or that each may be given according to their needs)
• Be separated from any form of bigotry or prejudice based on any conceivable distinction, but
• Not allow any doctrine or ideology that seeks, in any way, to separate anyone from the basic things they need to live and thrive

This is hardly an exhaustive list but even in these four modest proposals, the United States has consistently failed — both in the law and in the social order. Furthermore, it has failed to extend the blessings of liberty to all its posterity but to the world-at-large despite one of its most prominent founders, leaders, and legal minds pledging we would respect “the independence of other nations.”

Until this nation realizes its stated purpose, as spelled out in its own Declaration of Independence (that “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” are and must be accessible to all people without exception), I will continue to push back and, as Malcolm X stated “by any means necessary,” as socialists from Eugene V. Debs and Lucy Parsons to Fred Hampton and Dr. Angela Davis have done. But even as I push back, I wish this nation nothing but success, though a success in terms unknown and undesired by fellow citizens.