This Fourth of July, Let’s Pledge to End the Impulse to Exclude

Independence Day is upon us and Pride Month is still in the rearview mirror. It’s a good time to do some soul-searching about the American impulse to treat the country like an exclusive club. The basis for denying entrance may be race, religion, sexual orientation or any number of factors that some Americans find unacceptable (even as they fervently pledge allegiance to a flag symbolizing liberty and justice for all).

The problem isn’t confined to immigration. It also applies to access to the best schools, good jobs, the most lucrative resources. Inspect any group and you’ll eventually spot the rule makers, who write and enforce admissions standards with all the authority they can muster.

Some of this is baked in. When Thomas Jefferson wrote that “all men are created equal,” he wasn’t thinking about all men, or women of any kind. That statement appealed to many founders because they themselves felt the sting of exclusion—they never would’ve become English nobility. In this new country, with the chance to build a new hierarchy, they eagerly elevated themselves by denying some citizens the fruits of real equality. The right to hold office, for example, or even to vote.

We had barely opened shop as a nation when the excluders began their work. Catholics weren’t welcome here, Protestants weren’t welcomed there, Jewish people weren’t welcome anywhere, Muslims were barely acknowledged. The Irish, the Chinese, the Japanese, Italians, Germans, Poles and others, each had a turn in the barrel of American disdain. We brought millions of Africans here to work for free, fought a war to unchain them—and spent the next century denying them access to the polls, schools, etc.

Let’s not get into our treatment of the Native Americans who survived our eradication efforts, or members of the LGBTQIA community who escaped the closet we locked them into on Day One.

In the 20th century, the groups that suffered most began acquiring power and demanding equal treatment. For about 50 years we saw steady progress toward becoming a more inclusive society. We hit our high point in 2008 by electing our first Black president.

The backlash began the next day.

Inclusivity is now a dirty word in some parts of the country, mostly among people who see the country as a pie and believe that the more people we allow in the less there will be for them. The only solution they’ll accept is exclusion, a policy they seek to apply to an extensive list. The most strident among them would apply it to anyone who isn’t white, straight, Christian—preferably Protestant—and male. They comprise a decreasing percentage of the population, scaring them into demanding ever-harsher action to slam the door shut. They’ve started backing their demands with domestic terrorism and are talking up civil war.

They’re ignoring 400 years of history that prove our greatest strength lies in our immigrants. People who repaid us in gratitude, working not just to improve their own lives but the country. America’s preeminence in science, technology, exploration, medicine, the media and yes, military might, would not have been possible if we’d listened to the excluders. There just aren’t enough of them to form the critical mass needed for progress.

I’m a Democrat because I sensed early on that as a female in the 1960s, I wasn’t invited into the club. I had a book about careers. All of the characters were white, and the career paths were rigidly split by sex. Boys became doctors, girls became nurses; boys became pilots, girls became stewardesses, and so on. It seemed unfair, and also unwise. The boys I knew in first grade were still struggling to tie their own shoes, a skill I mastered before kindergarten. The prospect of them treating the sick and flying planes was alarming; a lifetime of playing second fiddle to them was depressing.

The Democratic Party isn’t perfectly inclusive, of course. But we’re not building walls on the border, refusing entry to Muslims or putting gay and trans people in hideous danger by accusing them of pedophilia. We’re actively promoting inclusivity, diversity, equity, on the theory that we will thrive best as a nation when we’re not busy trying to hold each other down.

I just read a Twitter thread from a self-described queer Christian writer who made a presentation at her church’s Pride service. Having bad memories of growing up gay in a fundamentalist congregation, she was understandably nervous. But the pastor warmly praised her speech and people lined up afterwards to hug and chat with her. She was overwhelmed.

“I felt embraced by God and his people,” she wrote. “I felt brought in rather than condemned and cast aside.” People who feel that way are likely to put time and energy into serving that community. Inclusion is powerful stuff.

As we celebrate another year of success as a nation, let’s give some thought to what it costs us—in lost goodwill as well as productivity—when we put time and energy into keeping people out of the club. This time next year, let’s look at what we gained when we put the welcome mat out, instead.