Take a Leap

“Once upon a time in America,” the famous lines of a 1980’s film by the same name that depicts the life of Jewish ghetto thugs who rise to prominence as Mafia heads in New York City. The all-star cast, led by DeNiro, gained minimal acclaim and lost money at the box office. But one thing it did do was become a legend of the American gangster films, especially with European audiences. Much like Jerry Springer, audiences in other countries look to our media, movie industry, and the tweets of well-known politicians to make judgement about America — judgement that may not be based in fact but closely resemble the America we know and love. This is typical if not problematic. But the real problem comes into play when American’s buy into the same antics, forming opinions about America that are based on hype, opportunistic propaganda, and special effects.

The America generations before knew, believed in, was a singular vision of good, not perfection. The team of Brooklyn Dodgers, for example, that worked together to overcome racism in baseball was led by a group of white faced men from every ethnicity even though the face of that battle was black. Looking back on a film on the era, I ask myself if I put dirt on my hands at the plate because it’s a good strategy or because Jackie Robinson did. The orbital mathematicians that led the NASA mechanics to bring manned spaceflights back to earth were, again, led by a pale faced manager who saw talent where others simply saw color. And because MTV hesitated to crown Michael Jackson as King of Pop, Black Entertainment was born, on the loan of a white man. There are thousands of other examples of Americans working together for the common good of America. No one group or person is being championed as the lone hero — the efforts were a group effort, plain and simple.

This idea of working together, and working hard at something that might seem impossible to others, is very American. It is the stuff of dreams. And once upon a time, it was the norm in our country.

Right now, we are in a society that has no clue about that kind of America nor that kind of hard work, for that matter. People have no idea of the things that unite us as Americans. We only seem to notice the things that divide us as people. Individually, our character and personality are not enough. Reputation alone no longer makes a person who he or she is — only superficial identifiers are recognized as the concepts that define us: gender, color, socioeconomic standing, affiliation, and sexual preference. Interestingly enough, everything just listed can be changed on a whim because of self-identification.

What’s the problem, scientifically, with self-identification? The simple answer is that the conclusion cannot be triangulated. In other words, if I self-identify one way one day, then change my mind, no one can predict or act upon a truth until I inform them, through self-identification, of what my truth is. When widespread, as this trend is attempting to become, it slows down all forward progress. If you have to wait for me to tell you who’s who and what’s what as it pertains to simple identification, which we should be able to take for granted for the most part, we find ourselves in a holding pattern circling the runway as we burn our fuel reserves.

For those evolutionists who were so vital to the idea that change is inevitable and ‘natural,’ did you not stand on the idea that these changes were (1) necessary for the survival of the species, and (2) take place over thousands if not millions of years? But as we push to promote fundamental changes, like gender, to take place in a matter of months, but be accepted almost immediately, we demand what evolution and nature are diametrically opposed to.