When ordinary Americans take a minute to think for themselves, they keep coming up with the same answer.
All lives matter.
Sure, there’s a determined core of radicals who want to insist that that’s a terrible thing to say. For such radicals, failure to single out black lives for mattering perpetuates old racist patterns. At the very least, saying “all lives matter” seems to deny black Americans an opportunity to — apparently — be lionized and aggrandized, be accorded unearned privilege and be seen as superior, or whatever it is they claim white people have been enjoying all these years.
Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
But the folks aren’t buying it. I think it’s largely because we keep looking around and just seeing…each other. In all our prosaic, unforced, diverse glory. Friends, neighbors, co-workers, fellow worshippers, fellow hobbyists and enthusiasts. Cops. Citizens. Americans.
Does that mean everything is perfect for every one of us, and no one has any complaints? Of course not. But most people don’t really buy the hype that we need to organize our lives around annoyances and resentments. These things invade every life, but most people would rather move past them, and focus on what’s good.
So it’s probably no surprise that our Image of the Day is going viral, and spinning off a little industry of copycat images.
Let Americans go to work on their own say-so for even a little while, and hope comes bobbing to the top.