Similar to everyone else on this planet, I see the world through my own eyes.  I can’t see it through yours, or my mother’s, or my friend’s. I have only lived my life, not some other person’s life.  Philosophers and political theorists have struggled with human knowledge for centuries, looking for the common thread, or the common good among us.  How is a common purpose assured?  Are we not alone, at all times, inside our own individual understanding?  Don’t we, after all, only know what we can touch, see, and hear?  If so, how is it that we can go about forging a community?  It would seem impossible.  Yet we do this again and again.  We find common purpose with many different people in our lives.  Throughout history we have come together.  Our birthplace has brought us together.  Religion has brought us together.  Language has brought us together. Our cultural heritage has brought us together.  In short, many different “tribes” have formed and have given us a common purpose.  In the United States, disparate groups, seeking freedom from persecution and intolerance forged a democracy that, in spirit and intent, as written both in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, would inspire millions towards a unified, common tribe.  The basis for this tribe?  The idea that all are created equal and all have the same human rights.  Inside the tribe of the United States of America, this is the common space that we occupy.

Today, the ideals of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence still signal to millions of poor, oppressed, disadvantaged people around the world, as well as in our country.  Yet today, we fail to understand how to fulfill the ideals that are upheld in these documents.  The founding fathers of these documents, this government, and this nation were wise enough to commit inclusive language to the parchment paper that we hold so dear today.  In our daily lives, as members of our community, we forget this spirit and create logic models that justify our fears, our fractured tribal mentality, and our desire to reject change and new neighbors.  The Muslim is eyed with suspicion.  Latinos are suddenly a threat to the “American Way of Life.”  Any and every foreigner who arrives here without proper command of the English language is treated to a barrage of inexplicable barriers.  Wasn’t this the country founded upon inclusive values, as stated in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution?

Right now is our future.  We have been fighting for decades for a government that is responsive to all people, for states that are responsive to all people, and for cities and towns that are responsive to all people.  Now is the opportunity to open up closed doors of understanding.  If we can help each other shift from fear-based dialogue that pits communities against communities towards an inclusive dialogue that brings communities together in a common purpose, then we have a chance to build on the wins accomplished by the Civil Rights Movement, the Women’s Suffrage Movement, the Gay, Lesbian, Transgender Movement, the Immigrant Rights Movement, and much more.  All of these movements reflect groups that have been poorly understood, at best, or severely hurt, at worst, the result of a fractured tribal democracy that pits the smaller sub-tribes against each other.  The founding principles of this country provide the framework for a much more meaningful tribe, an inclusive tribe that provides a common purpose for a diverse collection of people.  Unfortunately, these founding principles have a difficult time finding their way into our public lives, as well as into our public services and systems.  Our future is right now, and I think that in order to make it better still,  we have to open ourselves to understanding people from different tribes.  We have to accept the growth of our common tribe by integrating into our communities, into our government systems, and into our policy making, people from different lands, from different languages, from different religions.  This is the shift we need to create so that understanding of the “other” becomes a common purpose.  Such work may not be  easy, because we have a hard time seeing outside of our own lives, but it is possible to accomplish.

Tags: common good, constitution of the united states, declaration of independence, inclusive, integration, latinola, lucas diaz, puentes, tribal difference

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 21st, 2009 at 2:00 pm and is filed under Puentes Director. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.