We own our history, but we own our future too.

I’ve read a lot about the crisis on our Southern border. We see pictures of kids in cages, or of their bodies. We want to say that this is not us, not our values. We are wrong.

When our political ancestors divorced 13 colonies from the Divine Rule of Kings, they gave the power of governance to us. We hold the authority to amend the Constitution, altering the structure of our government to match our current times. We have the authority to elect politicians who enact laws in our name. They gave us ownership of the government.

We own the Trail of Tears. We own slavery, the Kake War, the Japanese internment, the burning of the Douglas Indian Village, and we own the unfolding humanitarian crisis.

However, we also own all the moments where we made things better. We own emancipation, the suffrage movement, and child labor laws. We own the reconstruction amendments, the Clean Water Act, the civil rights movement, and anti-discrimination laws.

And, we will own the fix to the humanitarian crisis on our Southern border.

Arguing that this is not us is ultimately a disempowering argument. It IS us, which means we have the power to make it better. And throughout most of our history, we have tended to progressively make things better.