Portraits of Two Americas
Last summer, beginning a new chapter of life, my wife and I moved from Boston back to the Midwest. We took a quick break at a rest-stop somewhere in rural Pennsylvania around midnight. We were exhausted and hungry. Instead of classic greasy American fast food, I found a Confederate flag — the symbol of American racism — which sickened me in a way that rivals the worst fast food.
Pennsylvania was never part of the Confederacy. And this battle flag has no other service beyond being a symbol of hate, a set of beliefs at odds with American democracy. That flag looks backward to an empty ideology instead of looking forward to the bounty of our diversity. I snapped the photo above for a somewhat cheeky “Welcome (Back)” post on my private social media accounts but ended up noticing an important story unfolding within the photo.
Earlier this year, a film titled Civil War thrived in U.S. box offices. Books of both speculative fiction and non-fiction envisioning a near-future intra-American conflict have been popping up with greater frequency. In The Next Civil War: Dispatches from the American Future, Stephen Marche explores fictional scenarios that could plausibly ignite violence within our borders. His scenarios seem more and more like our nightly news than speculative fiction. And our complicated and regrettable history of national racism is never far away from his scenarios. The flag in the background of my photo — not the primary flag of the Confederacy, as it’s commonly thought, but its battle flag — is a reminder of this danger.
The note in the photo adds a layer of irony and intensity to the snapshot of the store in the Pennsylvania rest stop. Independence Day and its festivities might be the longest enduring symbols of our country and the ideals of its founding. It's a celebration of the country’s unity and ideals, including the ideals that haven’t always been honored by the nation. The elephant in the background of the photo — the nation’s most enduring symbol of racism, an icon to the succession of 11 states — stands in ironic contradiction to this celebration of national unity.
I composed a very different photo on another road trip. I was on my way from Boston to the opening of an Interfaith Photovoice exhibit at Dartmouth College. The names of the phones that last connected to the car’s bluetooth include people whose names suggest a different story of America.
Rabbi David’s name might be the easiest identity to recognize. But what fascinates me about him is that his identity as a rabbi is so important to his sense of self that it's how his name appears on his own phone. The name Vijeta comes from the Sanskrit word for “victory” and is a relatively common name amongst Indian Hindus. Scandinavian in origin, Astrid means something close to “divinely beautiful.” As reflected in the name of Gemma Chan’s character in Crazy Rich Asians, there are people named Astrid all over the world. Then, of course, there’s my name. It comes from the titular Hebrew Bible—or Old Testament if you prefer.
I sometimes wonder about these travelers and what they are like, not to mention the identities of other people who rented this same car, who they were with, and where they were going. Did Rabbi David need the car for rabbinate related duties? Maybe Vijeta had a family wedding across the state. And maybe Astrid was off to a camping trip with friends. Whatever the reason and regardless of our differences, we were all going somewhere and we shared a means of getting there.
Our country is also going somewhere. I see two Americas in these photos. One is locked up, going nowhere, savoring old wounds, and clinging onto hate. The other is moving forward, embracing our differences, healing, and leaving behind breadcrumbs of hope.
