I fear history will think of us as an aberration, as we lost opportunity to advance enlightenment ideals of our patriot fathers, of the republic that so many generations built, of the battle for civil rights, of the generations that fought to raise our country up to be the shining example on the hill, including the prior generation that fought and beat the fascist and racist ideals of Nazi Germany. Yet we have allowed as a generation to see a degradation of political and democratic ideals of compromise and progress. We have allowed through ignorance of history and poor judgement the election of a president that degrades our nation and ideals. What will history think of us? Sure, not all of us have voted for this president. Not all of us own the results of an unproductive congress for the last decade… or do we? We fail to communicate. We fail in our values, and we fail to counter in our communities, schools, and our society the uneducated, unenlightened and ignorant expressions and votes of our fellow citizens. How will history judge us?

Will we continue to rationalize, continue to apologize for hate and say its not us, when evidently it keeps rising to challenge the peace of our cities, and our society?  We cannot look to our president for moral authority, he doesn’t have it, so why do we look?   I submit we look for what he’ll say because it’s like watching a wreck on the highway.  We cannot help but look.  We allow those that express amoral and unenlightened views more air time than those that offer solutions. We need to change how we educate, how we speak to each other and we need to call out racism and hate with reason.   Think about this, no person is born as a racist or bigot, it must be a learned trait, and therefore it can be unlearned through education and reason.   Andrew Young, Civil rights leader, reminded us today that the civil rights movement did show that by addressing the priorities of war, racism and poverty in a peaceful, reasoned way could be successful, but it must be continued and not lost in message by all the noise that is Donald Trump, and his alignment with the Alt-Right!

How will history judge this generation, for what we have done, or what we have failed to do?

To be judged as we really wish to be judged,  we must change.  Its up to us to change the trajectory of our country and generation, we are responsible for knowing and learning the lessons of history, we are responsible for listening and believing when someone tells us who they are.  When a politician tells us with clarity that he is a racist and misogynist, we should accept him at his word and not expect his behavior will improve in power.  We need to stop making excuses for our generation, our fellow citizens, and our representatives in government.  We need to hold our leaders to the standard of enlightenment and reason, including: … “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.”