Our forefathers handed down a dilemma. How can tribes, often warring against each other, become peaceful? The Greeks created games to stand in for the conflict, the Romans conquered and civilized, the Chinese built a wall. The Americans invited them all to become American.
The expansiveness of the American idea is its opportunity. The gentle acceptance of any creed, language, ethnicity, gender expression and sexual preference, is the hallmark of American society, unique across the globe, even when this acceptance has been imperfectly granted.
Even more radically, the acceptance of the poor yearning “to breathe free” has inspired hope in people around the world. Once we did not call them “immigrants”. Once we called them pilgrims. Those strangers were we ourselves, and we received a compassionate welcome in the United States that gladdened our struggling hearts and marked a new chapter in our lives.
A welcome, yes, and justice, for all. The legal system is founded on the principle that all may seek refuge in unbiased opinion, so that right may not be dictated by the strongest, but instead by the impartial.
The idea of America is inherent to the people who have pledged allegiance to its flag, who have promised to hold its citizenry as indivisible as its twin pillars of liberty and justice. Therefore, this beautiful beacon of America must outshine the dark night of tribalism, for it is we the people who hold it sacred. For its sake, we shall unite.