The Elephant Man and Our Nation’s Next Election Cycle
Recently, while in Washington, D.C., my Uber driver and I began conversing. He was a former citizen of Afghanistan who had lived in the United States for about a decade. After arriving in the U.S. and gaining citizenship, he earned a college degree and is working on a graduate degree in public policy. He shared how his daughters were getting an education, which wasn’t possible in his former country. As we talked, his voice took on a passionate enthusiasm wed with a tear as he shared:
“Do Americans still realize what a great country this is? Have Americans lost sight of why so many are still applying for Visas from all over the world and are at our borders wanting to get in?”
As I pondered my driver’s words, I thought:
“Have we become so myopic regarding our problems that we fail to see what we still have? Have we lost sight of why people from all over the world still seek to come to our shores?”
In a nation feeding on a diet of polarized social media feeds and news cycles, have we lost sight of what others still see in our nation? People from all over the world still want to attend our universities. Critical masses still want to be a part of the melting pot of America and the unique opportunities she affords.
As a child, I had a grandmother who prided herself in making me think. When I was old enough to talk, she would converse with her grandson about various challenging topics, including the great experiment called the United States of America.
She would describe how this nation was formed from waves of European immigrants, followed by waves of immigrants from all over the world. She would talk about the arrival of enslaved people from Africa. She would elaborate on the injustice of slavery and injustices expressed toward Native Americans and how it all heightens our responsibility to treat one another with dignity. She would forcefully declare that I was never to forget that America is a melting pot, and this was and is a major factor in her greatness.
It’s from a diverse pool of people this great nation was built, a nation like the world has never known. The majority of our foremothers and forefathers are from other nations, and among them were great innovators in the fields of science, agriculture, medicine, technology, and engineering. And because the American experiment attracted many of the world’s best and brightest, a vibrant economy and civilization like the world has never known has been birthed.
And then she would lean in across the table with her eyes ablaze and passionately proclaim:
“We are a diverse people as a nation, and unless there is something we hold onto that transcends who we are as individuals, the American experiment will fail! Fail, I tell you! This country has enemies within and without! It will always have enemies, and if we let our guard down, our enemies will seek to destroy us from within by perverting our diversity into factions so polarized that we turn on one another.”
And turn on each other we have. Far too often, we are no longer talking with each other but at each other. We gawk at one another. We demean and cuss one another. We demonize one another. We see it in our social media. We hear it in our news cycles. It’s as if we no longer see the other as our fellow human beings.
There’s an old movie released in 1980 that was intentionally filmed in black and white for effect. The movie’s title was The Elephant Man. It’s the story of a man born with Hansen’s disease. The disease had so distorted his appearance that everyone failed to see him as a human being. They viewed him as an object of amusement, disdain, or cheapened voyeuristic fascination. He was objectified. No one saw his humanity until the movie's climax as he collapsed and cried out, “I am not an elephant! I am not an animal! I am a human being! I ... am ... a ... man!”
As a Christian pastor, I operate with the understanding that all people are made in the image of God; therefore, all people are of sacred worth. The person I may disagree with is of sacred worth. People who are Democrats are of sacred worth. People who are Republicans are of sacred worth. People who are independents are of sacred worth. My enemy is not an animal. My enemy is a human being.
It was historian and philosopher Will Durant who once said:
“Civilization is not inherited; it has to be learned and earned by each generation anew; if the transmission should be interrupted for one century, civilization would die, and we should be savages again.”
As we move into the window of a new Presidential election, we are on unprecedented ground. It is entirely possible for us to have a presidential race involving one person showing signs of senility and another facing criminal charges played out in the national media. The dynamics will test our character as a people.
And amid it all, we may face a deeper choice than who wins an election. The deeper choice may be rooted in the kind of character we demonstrate. What kind of person will I become? How will I respond to someone who sees political matters differently than I do? How will I treat my neighbor whose yard sign supports a different candidate than mine? How will I respond to trash talk on social media when emotions are running high?
As we move into this election cycle, we are not destined to become savages. While we speak our convictions as citizens of a democracy, the person who holds a different perspective than you is not an animal but a human being. Exercising free speech while remaining civil is the soil of what makes democracy work. This is the soil that has made peaceful transitions of power work for 200 years. There will always be those who will seek to manipulate us to believe otherwise. Remember, “Civilization is not inherited; it has to be learned and earned by each generation anew.”
And it never hurts to remember the words of my wise grandmother, “If we let our guard down, our enemies will seek to destroy us from within by perverting our diversity into factions so polarized that we turn on one another.”
