“How do we reclaim our humanity?”

When I wrote that sentence in “Our Nation,” I used the word “humanity” to mean humane – compassionate, considerate, gentle. How do we make America humane again?

Were we ever truly humane? We* have a long history of inhumane acts and attitudes. Both before and after our founding as a nation, we attempted genocide of indigenous peoples. We have treated, and still treat, black people as less than human with slavery, Jim Crow, police brutality, and mass incarceration. Workers are treated as commodities and are discouraged from forming unions. Many of our systems are set up to put and keep wealth into the hands of those who already have a great deal of resources. We have increasing difficulty even talking to those who disagree with us.

And.

We also have a long history of compassion, kindness, humanity. These stories are less often written or remembered. We had the Sunday School Movement of the 18th and 19th centuries which greatly expanded literacy among the working class. We made and continue to have a free library system, which in addition to providing access to books, offers tutoring, a safe space to study, a connection point for social services, and community events. We created, and continue to sustain the National Park Service, which has preserved millions of acres of wilderness for us to enjoy, and provides education about those lands and the creatures that inhabit them. We instituted a 40-hour work week, transforming how many of us live our lives. We have laws that provide protections for women and minorities in the workplace and in schools.

We Americans have much in our history both to feel shame about and to feel pride about. We are a mix. We have the ability to act both terribly and with great compassion. How do we tap into the humane parts of ourselves? How do we amplify the humane bits of our systems? How do we cultivate more humanity?

* As an American, the history of this nation is part of my own history.