When I took a look at my partner's new passport, I thought, oh, that's nice-- it's highly design-intensive, very aesthetic. John Adams, old-fashioned typeface, all that. When I finally got to the back, thought, I was floored. I came away from the new quotes included in the interior thinking, "I'm so proud of my country-- but also so mad! I sound like a Tea Partier... wait, is this how most white Americans feel most of the time?"
Your new passport has quotes from race woman Anna Julia Cooper and astronaut Ellison Onizuka. Take a look inside, and let's see why this matters.
Dr. Anna Julia Cooper was born enslaved; she went on to earn a Ph.D. from the Sorbonne (in Paris) and contributed immeasurably to the heritage of black, American, women's, internationalist, and Christian (yes, Christian) thought. In your new passport, you'll find this quote:
'The cause of freedom is not the cause of a race or a sect, a party or a class-- it is the cause of humankind, the very birthright of humanity.'
It takes a lot for a black woman born in the 19th century to say that-- more importantly, doesn't it blow your mind when you realize that she believed that? In America?
Now, does that quote sound familiar? Let me remind you of who's said something like this the most often, recently:
'Freedom is not America's gift to the world, it is the Almighty God's gift to every man and woman in this world.' - George W. Bush
This kind of thinking has been alive and well for a very long time in the United States, as we see with these two quotes. But there's something hollow hearing it from a President who hadn't really traveled outside the country before he was... you know, President... and who spread freedom with daisy cutter bombs and tax cuts that threw working people in this country under back-breaking austerity. Hearing that sentiment from Anna Julia Cooper, though, and on the passport, somehow gives it a little more oomph, like you can take this document in your hand and continue a legacy that enriches the country by bringing back something it didn't have before, and setting a good example while you're abroad, to boot. It's something to aspire toward.
The other incredible quote in your new passport comes from Ellison Onizuka, an astronaut who logged 1700 miles of flight as an Air Force Colonel and became the first Asian American in space. He has a message for you:
'Every generation has the obligation to free men's minds for a look at new worlds... to look out from a higher plateau than the last generation.'
This man is a hero. It's not a matter of standing out, becoming an exception, or being first, it's about expanding horizons. I always thought that the most admirable thing about people who take the long view-- some Marxists, some anti-racists, some feminists, some artists, and some scientists-- was that they don't assume the greatest possible changes they'd hope to see in the world will take place within their own lifetimes. Sometimes, that makes for a lot of disappointment. I think of our current President working for a world free from nuclear weapons in this way-- it gives me hope when I'm most disappointed about all the cruise missiles, spending cuts, Guantanamo detainees, etc.
I think that if you hold the passport in your hands and you think the way Ellison Onizuka did, you'll say "yes" when someone asks you if you'd like to go to space. At the very least, you'll go somewhere. You'll try. You'll inspire someone else to try, even if you fail. That's how that plateau gets higher, by taking the long view, looking past the horizons you've always assumed were the crisp, planar edge of the world. We need thinking like that if we ever want to live on a planet fueled by solar and wind power, if we ever want to abolish the prison-industrial complex, and if we ever want to stop fighting wars, don't we?
It makes me pretty angry to see this stuff along with quotes from historical figures I don't like very much, pictures of Mount Rushmore and westward expansion, and the insignia of a State Department that has a lot of untidy entanglements with repression, torture, exploitation, and war. But I think that's what most of those folks out there feel-- along with a heaping dose of propaganda-induced ignorance. Still, it's nice to feel included.
So, anyway, welcome to your new passport, America. You've come into a great deal of good fortune. Don't spend it all in one place.