'Scoping Out America's DNA

I DON'T SEE my Trump friends often, and when I do, I have learned to never discuss politics. I was first warned against discussing politics or religion, with anyone, more than fifty years ago, by my sixth grade teacher. My initial response in sixth grade was that refraining from such discussions means that the two most interesting topics availabe are not available. I still feel that way, but have, late in life, finally acceded to the wise advice my sixth grade teacher gave me all those years ago. I learned the hard way, not the wasy way, the way she tried to teach me. Nonetheless, almost inevitably, Trump people insist on bringing up Trump. I am learning not to respond. My Trump friend said he is tired of Biden's lies. Every day, he claims, Jen Psaki stands in front of the American people, and tells one stinking lie after another. Utterly deplorable. This one I couldn't lay off of. I responded. "Yes, I know how much you Trump supporters simply cannot abide a liar". I braced for a snappy response, but none came. If I'm smart, that incident won't further embolden me. And, as fate would have it, as it inevitably eventuated, either Biden, his spokesperson Jen Psaki, or both of them just the other day made a comment with which I am not to sure I can agree. Nor am I sure whether they told the truth. I heard her make the remark, but it sounded as if she was quoting and repeating something Biden said. She was explaining why the United States has decided to "diplomatically boycott" the winter olympics next February in China. We'll still be able to root for our American athletes, she emphasized, but the U.S.A. will not be taking part in any of the ceremonies or other non-athletic events at the oplympics. Ths Chinese answered back by basically saying "good riddance, we'll all be better off without you". Psaki went on to explain why. The chinese, she said, oppress and commit human rights violations and atrocities against their minority populations, particularly their Islamic minority. The United States has no choice but to oppose and disapprove of this behavior, and so forth. Then, the clincher. Human rights, and the fight to support them, she said, is in our "American DNA". That got my attention. Human rights, in "our" DNA? The DNA of the United States of America? Really? Evidently, I have been dreaming for the past sixty years. In my universe, American women, American gays and lesbians, and African-Americans have been, for generations, fighting like crazy, year and after year, promoting, protesting, organizing, struggling and striving for basic human rights, basic human equality and acceptance, and not altogether successfully, although in all cases all minorites have in the U.S. demonstrably made progress. Progress, but still not enough progress. If human rights were indeed hard wired into our national cultural DNA, wouldn't it have been a bit less of a prolonged struggle? Wouldn't human equality have come somewhat more easily and quickly, without all the stress and strain, all the fuss and commotion, if America had human rights in our DNA? Then too, when you consider our American national history and legacy of slavery and genocide, it becomes even less easy to see human rights in our national DNA, and it becomes easier to see the exact opposite; violence, racism, intolerance, in particular. All word mincing aside; if devotion to fundamentsl rights is part of "America's DNA", well, then, slavery, racism, racial segregation and discrimination, and genocide, of native Americans, is no less a part, and, arguagly, just as much a part of our national cultural DNA,, and maybe even more a part. On that, let's agree, without disgreement. And yet I know exactly what Biden and Psaki are saying. Along with the horrible American history of suppresion of human rights, there exists, side by side, a cultural tendency to strive for human rights. The violence, the injustice, the lack of basic human rights in the USA cannot be diminished or denied; but neither can we ignore the persistent struggle to achieve human decency and equality in America, and it is that striving which gives us the right to claim human rights as being of fundamental importance to all Americans, even if we have to dig a bit deep, deep into our DNA, to see the moleules.