For "Real Americans"

To Vote Is To Fight

This week’s election is consequential. It will determine the political future of this country. But it will also determine whether millions of us have any chance to become or to remain first class citizens in our own country.

One of the time-honored tactics of the far-right movement in the U.S. is to suggest that they represent “real Americans.” In so doing, white supremacists arrogate to themselves the right to define the contours of our national identity. They have deemed the “real America” to be rural, to be based in the so-called “heartland” where “guns, God and family” are the defining values. They equate Americanness with whiteness. When they demand the right to “take our country” back, they specifically want the power to set the boundaries of American identity in the face of relentless demographic change. Their hubris is so great, and they are so determined to use this power, that they have even unleashed it on history, grotesquely claiming the power to control the past as well as the future.

American identity was defined in our Constitution after our bloody Civil War. The 14th Amendment ensured that American identity would be permanently subject to transformation. It did this by guaranteeing in the Amendment’s first provision, that anyone born or naturalized in the United States is a citizen. The provision was designed to ensure that after the Civil War, Black people - those formerly enslaved as well as free Blacks - would be uncontrovertibly full American citizens. This was consequential enough, nullifying the citizenship-stripping disgrace of the Dred Scott decision for nearly 5 million Black people. But the collateral beneficiaries of that provision are countless generations of immigrant families from Italy, Germany, Ireland, Serbia, Czechoslovakia and so many other European countries, and once racist immigration exclusion policies were reversed, families from Asian and Caribbean countries as well. Over the course of the 20th and 21st century, the arrival of these millions and their American-born children made possible the claim that this is a “nation of immigrants.” Because of this guarantee of birthright citizenship, our Constitution ensures that what defines “Americanness” will continue to transform and include new elements of culture and identity. It will continually be changed by new citizens and their children - those arriving from foreign shores and their descendants born here, who for 150 years have weaved their cultural contributions into the fabric of the nation.

And Americanness is not solely about citizenship in the legal sense. My conception of my own American identity is deeply rooted in my reverence for the work and courage of those civil rights activists and lawyers who came before me. They showed me that you can fight for the America you hope to create even when it fails to deliver on its promises. To do civil rights work is to believe in your right to fight for an America you have never seen. My identity as an American is anchored in my commitment to work for the promise of what can be, and a refusal to accept what is for far too many.

Every election - but especially this year’s election - is an opportunity to claim or reclaim your right as a citizen to speak in your fully American voice. To declare that you and your community are an essential part of the “real America” - whether in Baltimore, Florida, Pennsylvania, California or Georgia. Whether you live in the inner-city or a suburb. Whether you have a Ph.D., or a GED. If you are Black or Latino/a, you are as American as it gets. If your parents or grandparents are immigrants, if you are a naturalized citizen, you are as American as it gets. If you are a trans woman, a Muslim, a Jew, a Sikh, you represent the beautiful mosaic of a country that purports to hold freedom as an ideal. If you have had an abortion or may need one, you are in the mainstream of America. If you are white or Asian-American, middle-aged, elderly, disabled, a member of the LGBTQ community, you are an American, and you live your life in the “real America.” If you are Native American, you have the truest claim to this land and identity.

Voting this year is not only political, it’s personal. To vote is to speak. To vote is to declare that you will not be written out of the definition of who can claim their right to this national identity. To vote is to fight. Voting is not the only way to fight, but it is one of our most powerful weapons. Wield it with power and determination. And leave no power on the table.