We Are Not A More Perfect Union...

“To heal, we must remember.”

These were the words spoken by Joseph R. Biden on the eve of his inauguration. 

With his wife, Dr. Jill Biden; then, vice president-elect Kamala Harris; and her husband, Doug Emhoff, at his side, he gave these remarks during the national COVID-19 memorial at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. The next morning, he was officially sworn in as the 46th president of these United States at the U.S. Capitol.

Since obtaining the democratic nomination for the presidency, Biden has been described as the only candidate equipped to lead us in this time of loss and tragedy. Due to the loss of his first wife and daughter in a tragic car accident 40-plus years ago, as well as the loss of his beloved son, Beau, to cancer in 2015, Biden’s career, writers have suggested, has been defined by tragedy.

“To heal, we must remember.”

Hearing President-elect Biden utter these words, I was captured. I, along with many across this globe, have been impacted closely by the coronavirus. To witness the soon-to-be leader of the free world, take a moment to remember those we have loss – at that point just a little over 400,000 people –felt like a long-awaited acknowledgment of the pain the virus has enacted on us and others that make up the number of loved ones in mourning.

Those words were also calculated.

Two weeks prior, a group of Trump supporters and so-called American patriots stormed the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021, to stop the certification of Biden and Harris’ election. They were attempting to “take their country back.” As many of us watched from our phones, computers, and flat screens, some were astonished, amazed, dumbfounded even, by what was happening. “This is not America,” some pundits uttered sincerely as they verbally reprimanded the Capitol attackers. They described the moment as unreal. How could this be happening in our country at this time?

But as Cori Bush, the newly elected democratic representative from Missouri in the House of Representatives wrote in the Washington Post, beloveds, this is America; especially the America that many of us know.

I have spent a lot of time with biblical character Joshua, the successor of Moses. In the Biblical text, we are informed that Moses, under the guidance of the Lord, selected Joshua as his successor well before he died. When Moses eventually died, the people wept for 30 days. Before they were led out of the wilderness and into their next, they took some time to pause.

This idea that the people took time to mourn is intriguing to me. Not because the concept of pausing while mourning is foreign to me. No. I am intrigued because the people did it and because the text records that it happened. The fact that the people took time to weep before moving on speaks about how important it is to pause, while also sheds light on, to me, how bad society is in the practice of mourning and grieving.

Healing is defined as the process of making or becoming sound or healthy again. Considering this definition, and how the word has been used the past few weeks at least, it is safe to say there is a desire to obtain what once was – to get back. But to suggest we need to heal, or get back healthy again, that would mean that we are getting back to something we have already achieved.

When have we ever been healthy?

For the past fifteen or so years, we have heard the political rhetoric, “We are now more divided than ever.” But America has never been healthy. It’s very founding is rooted in oppression and exploitation. And the systems that govern us today are still rooted in the practice of moving the goal post to benefit those who have access over those who do not.

How are we to heal? What does healing even look like if what we claim we are seeking to gain is more ideological than practical and never truly existed in the first place? How do we become a more perfect union? What was even the intent or goal of a more perfect union in the first place?

In her book, “Occupied with Nonviolence: A Palestinian Woman Speaks,” Jean Zaru states that we are to find our strength in our storytelling. We are to tell our stories. While there are those out there declaring that the events of January 6 are not America, it is our responsibility to declare courageously, like Cori Bush, that indeed, “This is America,” to borrow a phrase from Childish Gambino (thanks Sarah). I agree with Zaru. It is necessary; it is important, for those of us who have been omitted publicly to tell our stories. I am a storyteller, of course I want our stories to be told. And I want us to tell them. If we do not, then what we have experienced, as those perceived to be in the minority, will be omitted in the same way President Lyndon Johnson attempted to silence Fannie Lou Hamer during her 1964 DNC speech.

And while we are telling our omitted stories, it is also time that the American majority, those that have controlled the narrative for generations, stop telling false narratives of how great this nation is and has been.

We cannot just move on. We cannot just call for unity and unification. We, like the people of Israel after Moses’ death, need to pause. To heal, there is a need for weeping. There is a need for evaluation. There is a need for truth telling -- pure and authentic. Too many wounds have become scars; scars that are reminders of the abuse, pain, and trauma that has been caused in this country in the name of democracy; under the guise of religious authority even.

We are not a more perfect union. But we can be.