Americans like to point to the Declaration of Independence as providing the basic promise of our country: “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” But when I look around my community, these words ring hollow. I can’t see the meaningful promises of life, liberty and a chance at happiness for myself or my neighbors. Instead I see a disconnect between our country’s values and its actions, between these unalienable rights and my reality.
A lot of this gap comes from the racial history of our country. When Jefferson wrote those idealistic words, he owned human beings who not only looked like me but may have shared my same heritage. They cleaned his house and prepared his meals, worked his land and bore his children. All without the use of their so-called “unalienable” rights. Throughout his life he owned upwards of 600 human souls with dark skin and curly hair like mine. The slaves may have been endowed by the creator with these rights but it was a man who took them away.
Jefferson didn’t include black people in his vision for a free world, and that exclusion has carried over to this very day. As a result, being black in America means doing a specific dance when it comes to your rights. You must be careful not to make too much noise or ruffle feathers or you risk losing the very right you are acting on and much more. Keep your head down, take what is given, don't make a ripple. These are our earliest understandings of rights.
Maybe that’s why people in my community think less about their human rights and more about their right to remain silent, and not just while being Mirandized. When reaching out too many times for food or financial assistance could end up getting the authorities involved in your life, you tend to stay silent even if it means going without the support or protection that you desperately need. I often feel the need to stay safe beneath the radar of authority because a call for protection could cause me to lose my housing or even my children. Others may fear losing their loved ones to incarceration, sending them further into debt and possibly causing them to be evicted. When I think about my basic human rights and look around my neighborhood there is a disconnect that occurs in my mind. When all we see is poverty, violence, incarceration, and a generalized apathy to change any of it, rights don’t mean much.
Take the right to life. You have a right to some healthcare, and yet black and brown people have less health coverage and have lost their lives at far higher rates from COVID. This topic is barely discussed in my neighborhood, however, because black men, women, and children are more concerned with losing their lives from police brutality. Or consider the right to liberty. You have a right to a fair trial before your liberty is stripped from you, and yet the wealthy hire fancy lawyers to avoid punishment and low-income black and brown people fill the prisons. Or let’s consider a right that is critical to the pursuit of happiness: education. You have a right to a basic education, and yet per student spending is vastly uneven, largely along racial lines, and only 28% of black 3rd graders are reading at grade level in Alachua County.
There are other ways we could be doing things. Imagine if we all agreed that everyone, no matter the color of their skin, really had the right to the basic things that you need in order to have a real chance at life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. What if there was universal healthcare to ensure that we all had the same chance to keep our lives during a deadly pandemic? What if there was meaningful accountability when the police shoot someone? What if everyone had the right to an attorney in all criminal cases (and not one with a caseload of 300 people)? What if instead of talking about ways to limit assistance to low-income families we talked about having a universal basic income? What if community leaders and community members came together and had regular round table discussions that resulted in real life solutions to the issues that plague oppressed communities?
These things are possible if we’re willing to pursue them. The responsibility to change things lies with the people. We have the power to decide how our community should run and put systems in place to make things better. Don’t forget that the Declaration of Independence also says that “whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it.” There is a long road ahead before our rights match reality, and I'm just one person standing up and saying that a change is needed. But imagine if I inspire others in my community to do the same. We could change the world.