To Be American

The following video both outrages me and shatters my heart into pieces. 

I actually wept as I watched this video.  I wept because this video shows the United States and all it stands for dying.  This video shows the death of traditional American principles. 

This country was born of protest.  The United States came into being only because a group of very brave men and women stepped forward to protest an unfair British tax.  "No taxation without representation" was shouted from street corners and eventually led to the Revolutionary War and the founding of the United States of America.

Following the U.S. Civil War more brave citizens stepped forward to protest peacefully.  These were freed slaves.  These men and women wanted real freedom and the freedom to have their voices heard.  In 1870 their voices were recognized and so was their right to vote.  The 15th amendment was passed, allowing African Americans to vote in elections. 

As early as 1790 women began fighting for their right to vote and in the mid 1800s they took this fight to the streets. In 1848 the Seneca Falls Convention was held in New York and it was followed in 1850 by the Women's Rights Convention in Massachusetts.  Women took to the streets, marching and holding signs--performing civil disobedience and peaceful protests all over the U.S, and in 1920 a law was passed that finally permitted women the right to vote.

Between 1920 and 1933 Americans came out in droves to protest prohibition.  They too won their fight.  So while you swig your favorite beer at a ball game or sip that glass of wine with your dinner you have these peaceful protestors to thank for each enjoyable legal drop.

Between 1955 and 1966 visionary civil rights leaders led the nation in peaceful protests.  Martin Luther King, Jr. lost his life for his efforts, but his voice was heard.  His voice is still heard.  His "I Have A Dream Speech" is familiar to all grade school children.  Desegregation occurred only because of the peacefully protesting millions who demanded their voices be heard.

Birth control is only legal in this country because people like Margaret Sanger and Katherine McCormick fought for that right.

Our country is what it is today because people protested, and historically many of these protests, though often contentious, have been encouraged.  Americans are a loud people. We are a people who cry out for justice and rightness.  We are a people who believe our voices should be heard because we are a country founded by men who demanded their voices be heard.

Pepper spraying SEATED COLLEGE STUDENTS for exercising their right to civil disobedience because they were doing what Americans do--WANTING THEIR VOICES TO BE HEARD---is as UNAMERICAN as it gets. 

You don't have to agree with their voices.  You don't have to agree with their protests.  You don't have to agree with anything.  But you do have a right to be heard.  That's what it means to be American.  In a country where even hate speech is made legal how can anyone turn a blind eye to a group of college students being brutalized by police officers for behaving as Americans have always behaved, for embodying what it means to be American?  How can anyone sit placidly by and accept this? 

This is a travesty.  This is unacceptable.  This is not the American way.  Using undue force on college students for caring enough about something to peacefully protest on a college campus is not only shameful--it is an act which turns my stomach and makes me feel physically ill.

This video horrifies me.  This video is evidence that our country is in grave danger of losing everything we were founded on.  We are in danger of losing what it means to be American.  We are in danger of having our voices silenced. 

As Evelyn Beatrice Hall said, "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." That's what Americans have always done--defended the right to free speech.  So while I have that right I will defend the right of any and everyone to peacefully protest whatever they so choose in any public space they so choose to do it in--because that is what it means to be American.