COMMENTARY: 'This is America' has different meaning for every American, every generation

This is America.

Public demonstrations. Political scandals. Illegal immigration. Border security. Voter apathy. Mass shooting attacks.

This also is America.

Left wing versus right wing. Racial discrimination versus harmony. Conservatives versus liberals. Christianity versus secularism. Republicans versus Democrats. White supremacists versus Black Lives Matter.

This, too, is America.

Because “America” exists in the minds of hundreds of millions of people as an imagined order, or a shared myth, we should never expect to fully agree on what defines it. Even the historical document written to do so, the Declaration of Independence, is long on promise and short on details.

“All men are created equal,” sounds promising and powerful if you, first, believe in a divine creator. And second, if you believe that our founding fathers (many whom were slave owners) were also including black men and every other race in addition to white men of power, money and influence. I doubt this.

And if you believe that “all men” included all women, too. I also doubt this.

Despite the collective genius and impressive foresight of our founding fathers, there is no way they could have conceptualized the United States of America hundreds of years into the future. Specifically America the Beautiful in 2018, which can be defined in part by some of those random descriptors I used to begin this column.

It’s impossible for more than 300 million Americans to agree on what exactly defines America, not only on a regular basis but at any given point in time. It will never happen. This is the curse of America. This is the blessing of America.

These were my thoughts while watching “This is America,” the controversial music video created by Donald Glover, under his musician name Childish Gambino. The four-minute video is a sociopolitical commentary about gun violence and race issues in a country that historically prefers to ignore both.

Amid otherwise joyful dancing sequences, the video is riddled with shocking gunfire and a bloody aftermath, with Glover behind the trigger. And then he goes back to dancing, similar to our escapist, carefree culture in regard to race and violence.

This, to Glover, is America, I’m guessing. At least one shade of it.

This isn’t my America because I’m not living this reality on a daily basis. Nor is it the reality of millions of other Americans, so they likely won’t “get it.” I don’t get it, either. Not deeply. Not profoundly.

I also don’t get the daily reality of most other Americans. Their worlds. Their perspectives. Their vision of America and what it means to them.

Nonetheless, we share the same loosely based ideals of what it is to be American. For starters, the freedom for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness from that imagined owner’s manual written for us in 1776. It may not be entirely relevant in the 21st century, but it continues to bind us with hope and guide us with principles.

Trouble is, we’re left to decipher it with our own devices of understanding in a nation that is continually embattled. Not only with other nations, but with other Americans. It’s a bloody, complex, bewildering evolution. It always has been.

I was reminded of this while watching on Netflix a series of historical documentaries about our ever-changing country. Every generation has experienced its share of bloodshed, conflict, protests and fatalities, all in the name of America, whatever that meant for those people at that time.

There were heated political battles among lawmakers in Washington, D.C. There were vicious fights in the streets between armed police and innocent protesters. There were hostile demonstrations about abortion rights, civil rights and human rights.

Each side was convinced that their stance was for a more righteous America. That their actions would create a mightier America. That their bloodshed would be worth it. For a cause. For the most important cause. For this shared myth called America.

Still, we should never assume that all Americans, even most Americans, will be in full agreement on what this means. They won’t. We won’t. Not in 1776. Not in 2018. Not in 2076 or even 2176 if our country makes it that far.

Every issue will become a battle of wills. Every day will become a clash of ideals. Every political forum will be a power struggle.

These are the hard truths behind this republic that we’ve pledged allegiance to since childhood. This is the cost for our version of democracy. It’s easy to forget this during these polarizing times in American history. Yes, history has its eyes on us, too.

Each day I watch my social media followers attack each other from different political points of view. Left versus right. Conservatives versus liberals. Trump versus anti-Trump. It’s as if both sides don’t understand that without the other side, everyone loses.

This is what truly makes America beautiful.

Not by avoiding, or dancing around, crucial issues of the day. But by dealing with them directly, knowing darn well it won’t be pretty yet it may be productive. Maybe. Possibly. Someday.

As our past has taught us, human flaws will keep getting in the way of the greater good. Fear, greed, corruption, prejudice, and a primal lust for power, among others.

Things will be messy. Things have always been messy. Our founding fathers knew this. This is the whisper from their graves. This is the imagined vision of their dreams.

This. Is. America.