Shared Responsibility of Citizenship

I’m feeling a bit philosophical today. Last week I read reflections on Juneteenth, along with former President Barack Obama’s comments at the opening of the Obama Presidential Center. A friend, Shannon Watson, also shared NC Senator Michael Garrett’s reflections on that speech (via Facebook, June 18). And then, of course, we are approaching our country’s semiquincentennial. Together, they set me thinking about our shared responsibilities as citizens.​

Obama’s message – echoed in Sen Garrett’s reflections – lingered with me: a call to reject cynicism and division, and a reminder that democracy depends on active citizenship, shared values, and faith in one another.

Obama put it this way: “Leadership has less to do with titles or rank or chasing attention than with helping others find their voice, reaching their potential.”

And more broadly: “Democracy can be frustrating. It can be slow. It can be inefficient. And yet … it is precious. It reminds us of what we can achieve when we embrace our shared responsibilities as citizens … It is our greatest inheritance, the story of America at its best, because it reflects a basic faith in the decency of our fellow citizens and the possibility that despite all of our differences, we can see each other and understand one another and make common cause together.”

Obama also talked about the challenges we face today that tempt us to “give in to cynicism and even despair, to stop trying”:

“I get it. I am not immune to anger or doubt, but I do know this: When we lose faith in each other, when we stop believing that voting matters, that citizenship matters, that our collective voices matter, that how we treat each other matters, and we give away our power to decide our own futures, we open the door to the most ruthless, or the most careless, or the most fearful among us.”

For me, Obama’s most powerful reference – and reminder - (and Sen Garrett mentioned in his reflections) was to Theodore Parker’s words from 170 years ago: “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” Parker spoke those words in a deeply uncertain time, when his own vision for a better future was clouded, and yet he held on to hope – “to stay true to our better selves and true to one another, and to keep fighting to fulfill the promise of this nation …”

Though now we “see through a glass darkly,” we have role models of perseverance, to do as Sen Garrett charges us: “put our hands on that arc – and pull. Till it bends.”

See you in the trenches,
B

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