The Other American Dream
Let’s not deceive ourselves any longer — the American Dream as we know it is dead. The quintessential story of hard work taking someone from rags to riches is just that — a story. Born of naïveté and fallacy, this ill-fated delusion was delivered a fatal blow the first time an American died in poverty while another feasted on the profits of their toil. Though this dream now exists solely for privileged individuals who long ago lost touch with the harsh realities of what real life means for millions of Americans, our nation’s blind faith in the integrity of the American Dream remains a painful reminder of our society’s willingness to ignore the failures of existing power structures. Rather than the strong motivation for morally-achieved success that it was intended to be, the American Dream has become a fallback used by the ruling class to vindicate their ruthlessness and barbarism in their rise to the top of the social pecking order without any concern for those whom they crush along the way. By parroting the lie that true equality of opportunity does exist in today’s society, the modern aristocracy shifts the blame for their oppressive rule away from themselves and onto the victims of their greed. They fail to realize that “pulling yourself up by your bootstraps” means nothing as long as our society allows individual privilege to give certain people a head start in life that others, who are no less deserving, don’t get. The American Dream as we know it has become an American nightmare, a perverted distortion of a Dream that once upon a time shone bright with hope and promise.
However, the death of the American Dream as it is commonly understood does not mean the death of the American promise. Though it has been all but forgotten, there still exists, buried somewhere deep within the most hallowed realms of our nation’s great democracy, another American Dream. It is not a Dream wherein the surest path to the top is paved on the backs of everyone and everything in its path, but rather a Dream wherein our great nation makes good its commitment to the sacred promise that all people are created equal. It is a dream reflected in Abraham Lincoln’s promise to the American people of a “new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth”. This other American Dream is the dream that Martin Luther King, Jr. put forth when he looked out across a sea of faces of every shape, size, and color, each representing their own small part of the great American experiment, and boldly proclaimed that “we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream”.
The other American Dream, the true American Dream, is the dream of a better America. It is the dream of an America that does not determine the quality of your life or that of your children based on skin color, gender identity, or postal code. It is an America which does not allow innocent lives to be wantonly destroyed by the greed and recklessness of those at the top. It is one in which every person is given the opportunity to follow their own dream, not some predetermined notion of what that dream should be. This other American Dream is not one in which selfishness and cruelty are applauded and rewarded. This other American Dream is one in which man and woman, black and white, rich and poor alike can all come together as one America and revel in our shared humanity.
It is often said that the United States of America is a nation unlike any other, and that this singular destiny means we are charged with setting an example for the rest of the world. This notion of American exceptionalism is one that has pervaded American thought for as long as America has existed, beginning with John Winthrop’s declaration that we must be a “City Upon a Hill”. However, we must do more than merely set an example. We must set the right example, an example that can only be achieved through the tireless pursuit of this other American Dream. The other American Dream is one of hope, and through leading with our actions we must spread that hope to the watchful eyes that are upon us. It is not enough to merely be a city upon a hill. If the American Dream is to be kept alive, the United States of America must become a candle in the night.
