Intergrity and The Well-Being of our Nation

It is in their dark skin and person that the very ideals, principles, and notions (freedom, liberty, and opportunity) that this nation was founded on were either to be made real or proven to be a lie.

The irony isn’t lost here, that a signer of the Declaration of Independence enslaved an African denying him the very freedom being declared in the document. It’s this same irreconcilable disconnect that threatened the integrity of the union, casting it into civil war nearly destroying this experiment in democracy. And to this day it haunts our land from the genocide of this continent’s First Nations, to the interment in prison camps of Americans of Japanese descent, to having to declare “Black Lives Matter” as a reminder that the descendants of enslaved Africans indeed are human sentient beings.

Do not underestimate what is at stake, nor take lightly nor dismiss this moment because it is a test of the integrity of the ideals, values and principles that gave birth to these United States of America. If I might be so bold as to say, the well-being of our nation rests on their integrity.

Do these ideals lack the integrity that they must have if they are to guide us and our nation? Or are they a sham, fancy words written on parchment so long ago, applying to some and not to everyone else? If our laws, actions, or speech demonstrate what’s contrary to them, perhaps these ideals have no integrity at all because they lack the power to bind behavior and guide thought. However, if they are taken seriously and guide law, thought and action, then their integrity is sound, and we can rest in their strength assured that they will prevail.

Yes, Black Lives Matter. The well-being of our nation depends on that fact. When black lives fully have the same privilege as all others, we can confidently live in our nation’s founding ideals and principles knowing that they have passed this test of their integrity. And without integrity well-being isn’t possible.