We must find a common ground and unite by finding solutions

Nov. 16, 2020 | G. Michael Dobbs
news@thereminder.com

The Civil War could be called the most divisive moment in the history of the American republic.

Witness the fact the systemic racism of the era didn’t go away with the conclusion of the conflict. It simply shifted appearance.

We saw how slavery was transformed into indentured servitude through the sharecropping system. We saw how poll taxes stifled the vote among African-Americans. We saw how the openly racist attitudes of many white Southerners went underground and manifested itself in organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan that used violence to reach it goals.    

By the 1920s, there was a revival in celebrating the heritage of the slave-owning South by the erection of statues and monuments to the leaders of the Confederacy in many communities.

There was precious little healing between north and south in the next century. And to be sure, racism was alive and well in the northern states. I think folks here simply hid it better. We have plenty for which to apologize and correct.

Along the way there were some changes, tiny ones, such as President Harry Truman’s order to end segregation in the American military in 1948.

The real legislation to finally address several key aspects of the Civil War was the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which formally protected everyone’s right to vote.

The Civil War ended in 1865 and it took a full century to fix one of the most terrible problems created by slavery.

Many issues remained though and we are still attempting to correct them.

This is why I am fearful of what is currently happening in the country and why I think calls for healing reflect the best of intentions, but may not yield the results we need to move forward.

I can’t bring myself to believe we may have decades of continual division, but that is possible.

If you look at our country from the macro view, you see a nation that elected Joe Biden, but you also see millions of Americans who supported President Trump. The division is very real.

This just isn’t about Red and Blue states. It just isn’t about Americans who believe the election was “stolen.” It’s about Americans who believe the media is lying to them even with the reporting of the most direct of facts. It’s about Americans who believe a way of life they want is being denied to them. It’s about Americans who think they must arm themselves to go to grocery stores. It’s about Americans who can’t tell the difference between journalism and opinion. It’s about Americans who cling to memes and shared social media that bolster their opinions and fears.

It’s about Americans who don’t support a smooth and orderly transition as we have had in the past.

Now let’s bring it down to the micro. How many families have been torn up by this division? If we lived in the pre-COVID world how many holidays this year would have become battle grounds or, perhaps worse, carefully designed de-militarized zones?

I’ve walked on a lot of egg shells this year, have you?

There’s been some conflict in my family. It’s not been easy to understand or acknowledge. The quickest way to deal with it has been silence. How about yours?

While the cynic in me believes we are in for a very long and rough haul, the optimist in me is praying for Americans to find common ground and unite over finding solutions to our problems.

We need a federal plan about the pandemic. We need to stabilize or reverse the economic effects of the pandemic. We need to address systemic racism. We need to face the facts that climate change has created an inferno in California and other parts of the West and unceasing parade of hurricanes in the Southeast, events that threaten lives and jobs.

Whether or not we can achieve any of these goals rests on people of all political beliefs to find common ground. 

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