This project was started to solve structural human problems. It focuses on resource scarcity and climate change because they are core – foundational, and driving, to our condition. They prevent our ability to collectively progress. They devour our potential. And they cause us to fight amongst each other in conflicts that bring out the worst in us.
Yet they are far from the only afflictions that perform this exact effect. Our nation was reminded bitterly of this as we saw George Floyd murdered in broad daylight, begging for his life as he was suffocated for nine minutes by police officers who killed him with casual indifference. This man was a person. A father. A brother. And an American. That he was none of these things to his murderers is a crime. That his name now joins a seemingly endless list of others who met similar fates is a national disgrace. Our disgrace.
Racism - America’s original sin - has arrived once again to claim the name of someone who unquestioningly did not deserve to die at the hands of state employees. It is yet another repeat of a perverse cycle that is known all too well outside of our safe white circles, a cycle that we now stand horrified witness to - even if only momentarily into a world we do not live in and clearly do not understand. How many times have we seen this happen, only to see it repeat again, and again – and again, and again, and again, and again, and again? This is a cancer upon our condition, plainly and clearly. And it’s setting our nation on fire.
Compounded by the many other social injustices that have divided our cultural landscape, our society has been pushed to a breaking point. These problems are not going away. The outraged voices against them will not get quieter. And their capability to tear our nation off its foundations gets stronger each day they remain unsolved. We have a broken justice system. We have a broken economic system. And we have a broken social contract. The state of affairs we find ourselves in requires of us to write a new contract, for continuing on this path, if history is any guide, will ultimately rip our society to pieces.
There will be many words shared in support of this new contract. And many will come from people who have stories to tell and voices to be heard that, in the past, have been silenced by the very plights our nation now recoils from. It is imperative that we hear them, not just to listen for an opportunity to respond – but rather an opportunity to understand. To put ourselves in their positions, in the context of their stories, and imagine how we might feel had it been our communities who shared their history, and their truth. That such a task is imperative, in and of itself, defines the gravity of our circumstances: for perhaps nothing else illustrates our nation’s shame more starkly than its framing of the past 400 years of black history as “their” truth, as opposed to “ours.”
As a nation, we used truths comfortable to our worldview to tell stories that built our image: songs of midnight rides and declarations of independence, of star-spangled banners, Gettysburg addresses and grand defenses of freedom on foreign shores. Yet their verses never granted credence to the horrors undertaken along the way - the horrors that continue to this moment. We used truth as a currency to amass great wealth by downplaying the exploitation that made it possible. But as it enriched our accounts, it bankrupted our soul. In celebration of our triumphs, we have ignored our sins.
The systematic genocide of native people who once called our nation home.[1] The bombing of black settlements whose only crime was succeeding in America.[2] The mass murder of innocent brown families.[3] The rampant terrorization of minority communities.[4] The systemic mechanisms to enforce poverty and police the same.[5] The institutional racism – and institutional predation – that persists, as you read this, in the form of forced prison labor,[6] laws that incarcerate minorities in massive numbers for victimless crimes,[7] policing for profit,[8] unjust asset seizures,[9] and comply-or-die mindsets of law enforcement that consider disobedience, however slight, to be grounds for extrajudicial execution.[10] To much of America, these are “black” and “brown” stories – oft-dismissed as ideological harkings of a “leftist” or “bleeding-heart” narrative, rather than the unvarnished objective truth of our American history.
They are the stories of “them.” They are not the stories of “us.”
And this is the foundational problem that must change.
There is no truth that can shift a national perspective unless it is a national truth. The time is long overdue where the whole truth becomes our truth. We need to bring ourselves to embrace it, to spark a collective conversation in a way that cannot be spun or deflected – where uncomfortable realities, inconvenient facts, and unsightly narratives cannot be swept from center stage. Our ignorance of them does us no favors and presents us no catharsis. It tarnishes what pedigree the best of us bring to bear, and it inherently corrupts our collective soul.
America needs an opportunity to reconcile our truth, and reconcile our stories – so that they are of a single people, dedicated to moving forward as such.
America needs a Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
A Truth and Reconciliation Commission is a manifestation of tremendous hope in response to unfathomably traumatic events: genocides, war crimes, and systemic state brutality. The first, and perhaps most famous, was in South Africa after Apartheid[11] where carnage was wrought with such paralyzing and debilitating pain, that the only way to build a national path forward through the wreckage was to form a nationwide commission that put life on pause to make the truth of what happened known, and remembered.[12]
This commission, and those like it since,[13] invited all participants in the dynamic – victims and perpetrators – to offer testimony of their stories to their nation, where the nation as a whole could listen, understand, apologize, and forgive[14] - granting immunity to those who shared their truth. No spin. No ideology. No excuses. Against the backdrop of the dirt, loss, blood and tears, just raw, unvarnished truth of what happened, so that the nation would recognize that truth as it happened, and could interweave it into their national story to build a new foundation, and a new future.
And that is exactly what America needs in this dark hour.
Unlike other initiatives[15] that seek similar goals (however laudable) our Truth and Reconciliation Commission must be a function of state – to carry the weight of state policy, and of law. But it also must be a function of people. Business leaders, social influencers and public thinkers should all grant their presence. The same is true of the political actors of our time – if even to show for the record that they heard what was said with their own ears, and saw the pain of a long-denied truth with their own eyes.
We must fundamentally break the biases and the propaganda that sustains their presence in our psyche, and discuss - in open forum - the realities of race, policing, crime, punishment, law and justice that have a stranglehold on our national future. This allows our nation to draw lines in the sand to define what happened, how and why it happened, and how we can work together to build a future cognizant of this truth, in hopes that it will never happen again.
I cannot speak to those who would refuse participation, nor those who would seek to undermine the initiative from the start. Let history judge them accordingly. This must about us, and our unwillingness to accept a rank injustice that has gone unanswered for far too many decades. We owe it to ourselves, those who came before, and those who will come after to call for its establishment, and put our routines on hold to grant it focus and attention. To stand for a method where we can come to the table as a people and honor each other in a way where we can look each other in the eye – and ourselves in the mirror – and do our very best to try.
This is not a choice for emotion, anger, heritage or identity. At its core, this choice is for life. The lives of the people we share our own with. To recognize not just their right to exist as human beings, but also the rights that define their humanity. For them to belong as part of our stories, to have their history be valued as our own, and be valued the same as individuals, as neighbors, and as Americans.
This is how a society is built. And these stories are the ones America needs to hear, to rebuild what we have lost, heal what has been wounded, and strengthen our functions to face the days ahead. It may not be the last step needed to accomplish these goals. But it needs to be the next.
