Independence
The Difference a Day Makes
This week as we celebrate Independence Day, I am reflecting on how for so many of us there is a double-sidedness to our celebration. We are elated to take a day to remember the significance of our nation’s core values: that all of us are created equal and as such have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Yet, we also know that we have a long, long struggle ahead to ensure that our lives are lived in equality, and especially that the environments that we live and grow in are equally safe and healthy. It is only when we have substantive equality in the form of equal living standards and equal life chances, that we will have the sociopolitical equality that our founders dreamed of. As I write in Rethinking Intelligence, we must start with our social institutions of education, employment, healthcare, housing, and justice. Only then can everyone have the same chance at a healthy, long life, free from threats to mind and body, free to learn, create, and pursue happiness.
“We must start with our social institutions of education, employment, healthcare, housing, and justice. Only then can everyone have the same chance at a healthy, long life, free from threats to mind and body, free to learn, create, and pursue happiness. ”
Right now, our core values are still pipe dreams for many Americans. In place of equality, we have a lack of support for new and expecting parents, so only some people are accessing the prenatal care that they need. We have a lack of free quality early childhood care and education, so only some babies and toddlers are getting the bonding and learning experiences they need to grow. We have an overabundance of implicit bias in schools, where students of color are disciplined for the very behaviors that garner praise for White children—disciplining behavior deemed “antisocial” versus “creative”—so that only some of our children can graduate to become professionals. We have an overabundance of predatory policing, so that only some people can safely exist let alone live in a way that allows them to pursue happiness and dreams.
From Independence to Interdependence
The men who were empowered to write America’s core values fought for a very limited notion of independence. To them, the British government was oppressive and tyrannical, especially around religion. They could no longer stand by.
Our founders were less revolutionary in thinking of how to construct a radically different society. The emancipation of slaves? Suffrage for women? Literacy and life chances for those of lesser means? These were far from their minds, so independence was won along narrow lines and only a certain kind of person could truly be free in the newly independent America.
I believe that in that fight for independence, there was a glimmer of what our founders should have been fighting for. It is not independence but rather interdependence that can manifest a society of free and equal people. We need each other. We are social by nature and entirely interdependent. We must recognize that if some of us are endangered, then all of us are endangered. By contrast, if all of us are nurtured, all of us will thrive. We need to generate quality environments and social institutions that truly serve each and every one of us so that all of us can realistically dream, live, and love, and reach the happiness we so deserve.