Reflections on Our 250th

Observations From a Local Author

By Corinna Fales

Columnist

The USA is turning 250.

It is a biggie, and I wish I felt more celebratory.

How do you feel?

I remember Oprah asking her guests what they knew for sure.

I know that a divided house will not stand. And we are divided.

It feels like something’s gotta give.

I also know that it’s getting harder to know anything for sure.

And that a growing number of us are frustrated, angry, and fed up with our politicians, our parties, and our government.

Our country has always been a deeply flawed version of its credo. But we had a credo. And I love our people despite having lived in communities that white people avoid and seeing terrible, terrible things for myself. I am not naïve about how this country was founded and built. I am not naïve about the bloodstains on its hands.

But we had a common ideal about the nation we ought to be. And we had communities, though they were usually separate: White, Black, poor, rich, country, city, North, South, East, West. Now, it seems that, for the most part, the poorer populations maintain community. There are definite cultural differences in how different groups maintain community, but the more affluent we become, the less we need each other, and the more we rely on money (especially true, in my experience, for white people).

Most people around the world are busy just trying to survive. It is daily work. And what they do and make has an immediate and direct bearing on the survival of their families and communities. They need to rely on each other and their communities. Work is real, not abstract or paid for by someone else.

We, on the other hand, are estranged and increasingly isolated from each other, especially since COVID. We don’t share much anymore, let alone a sense of reality. The best in ourselves has been used against us, and the worst in ourselves has been used against us. By others, for their gain.

I watch with horror the increasing control to which we are all subject and the confusion that has been sown. Everything is spun, as if life itself were one giant advertisement. Now, you’re considered successful if you’re an “influencer” and have many “followers.” Our politicians lie. How does this benefit us?

We are not our divisions. We are not our government.

We flail around in dense thickets of misinformation, disinformation, and hidden information from the media (controlled by a few) and both parties.

In The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt wrote: “The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction no longer exist[s].”

If we no longer know what’s true, how can we make informed decisions? And every time we try to make a change, it seems we don’t get the change we had hoped for.

Our government does not serve us. We are torn apart, ripped to shreds, programmed to fight and to blame each other.

It’s overwhelming. Too big, too muddy, too ugly. Too crooked.

Every day, more of us are registering as Independent.

To be blunt, I don’t see how the country can stand as it is. I love the American people and have a deep sense of faith in them. But as I see it, our working people have been betrayed by both parties. I am first-generation here, and it is horrible for me to watch this.

I also seem to have a hard head. After a lifetime of activism, I feel overwhelmed and want to give up, but I don’t seem able to fold quietly into the background. I want to know what GenZers think. I want to talk to young people about their thinking and feelings.

Maybe our 250th anniversary is a time to re-commit.

We need clarity, courage, commitment, and community. We need to find each other again.

We are not human waste.

Hi. I’m Corinna. And in keeping with the spirit of this piece and my integrity, I am not writing my bio in the third person, as is customary. We all know who really writes them, so why pretend otherwise? Since 1995, when I got my first professional assignment as a writer/editor (a field research report for the Library of Congress), I have served academics, nonprofits, NGOs, governmental agencies, and some memoir and fiction writers. I moved to Southern Village last fall and look forward to getting to know more neighbors here and in the broader community. Please holler back at me with any reactions, comments, questions, or invitations you wish to share. corinna.fales@gmail.com. Also, you might like the unique insights in my first book, Different: Our Universal Longing for Community. In it, I explore, through in-depth interviews, the complex social layers of the human community—on and off campus—at Lincoln University, the first historically black college, where I grew up.