Some still miss out on American Dream
By:Hillsborough Beacon
On Monday, Memorial Day, we will remember those who have fallen in battle during the service of our nation. Even with its parades and picnics, Memorial Day foremost is a time for sober reflection on the cost of freedom and for remembering those who have died.
But for all our gravity and ceremony, it is beyond our power to make Memorial Day sacred. That task already has been accomplished, by soldiers from the Revolution to the present day; by spouses, parents and children whose loved ones never came home; and by those wronged by the government, from those killed in Shays’ rebellion, to the Carnegie steel workers shot by the National Guard in Pittsburgh, to the Japanese-Americans relocated into camps during World War II, to those who have seen property and money seized under the nation’s too easily abused assets-seizure laws.
We cannot make Memorial Day sacred. That already has been done. Our task is different, but no less important. Abraham Lincoln outlined it in the Gettysburg Address:
“It is for us the living, rather, to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us … that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people and for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
That task, set before those gathered on the Gettysburg battlefield, is one no generation has yet completed. It is a task that awaits us as surely as it awaited the Founding Fathers, President Lincoln, and every other citizen of this nation. It is a task we dare not shun, because we have presumed to include it in the very foundation of the country.
Many claim that America is the greatest country in the world. That is a bold claim, but it is matched by a bold dream of equality for all people, regardless of their differences.
The full power of that dream has gone unrealized throughout our history, as any student of race relations or the history of our nation’s interactions with its neighbors to the south will attest. And while segregation officially is over, and while women can vote and while the opportunity exists for personal social and economic advancement, the American Dream still awaits fulfillment. We have made progress, but we still have a long way to go.
Consider the following:
‡ A number of New Jersey schools have made national news for overreacting to children’s behavior. In Sayerville, a group of kindergartners was suspended for playing “cops and robbers.” In West Windsor, a 9-year-old boy was suspended and visited by police for threatening to shoot a classmate with a paper wad. We are allowing our fear to destroy childhood.
‡ Nationally, many students’ First Amendment rights have been ignored as administrators have barred them from sharing favorite Bible stories or giving gifts to classmates because of their religious nature.
And even as we continue to experience the longest economic boom in history, poverty remains a problem, and not just in major cities. Even in Somerset County, the wealthiest county in New Jersey, there remains a need for soup kitchens, homeless shelters and food pantries. Even in this age of increasing prosperity, too many have been left out.
On Memorial Day, we remember the fallen. Their sacrifice reminds us of the task still undone: not to die for our country, but to live. It is for us to make America the land of individual freedom and promise it was meant to be, a land without the sting of bigotry, a land where we truly celebrate our differences instead of forcing others to be like us.
The American Dream is a good one, and the veterans we honor Monday gave everything they had for it. As the beneficiaries of their sacrifice, we can do no less.