The American dream and how we each play a part in making it a reality for everyone
It’s a conversation we need to have in an America that’s changing right before our very eyes. This is happening, voices being silenced, lives being altered. Two weeks into this thing and our world feels like a vastly different place. Are our freedoms really free? At what costs will we alienate ourselves against other countries to become a more insular society scared of those things that make us different and fearful of a future we’re trying to control?
Is this American? Does turning away those who are different make us any better than those who challenge to end our rights to liberty every day? Do we lack the empathy and intellect to sympathize with those who’ve been affected by our foreign policy or do we continue to place blame, divert people’s attention towards alternative facts, rather than taking responsibility?
Related: Monday Morning Motivate | “We Can”
Yassin Terou, aka Yassin Falafel, fled Syria with a suitcase and a few hundred dollars. He knew no one in Knoxville, Tennessee, and he spoke no English, but he came to the United States to rebuild his life and pursue his dream.
His shoes, as Americans, we’ll hopefully never have to walk in. There hopefully will never be a day in America where the destruction and violence will be so bad it’ll force us to leave our homes and be separated from the ones we love.
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me:
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.” – Emma Lazarus
If these words truly embody the principals and ideals our country was founded on, the least we can do is lend our voices to the oppressed, our time to the afflicted, and be a shining example to the world that love and acceptance always out trump fear and hate.
This American dream is for everybody.
(h/t): Square
