July: A few inchoate thoughts on American independence, exceptionalism, and justice

July. High summer.

I love July. I wake up early and it smells like flowers outside - I'm not sure whether it's the nascently-blooming butterfly bush or the fragrance of the enormous mimosa tree in a neighbor's yard that is wafting toward our house.

The 4^th of July is arguably my favorite holiday. It’s the only holiday the US celebrates in the summer* and that isn’t tied up in religion or expectations about family, which helps to make it feel freeing, appropriately so, since it’s a celebration of independence. Add to that the fact that the weather is often wonderful and that there are always fireworks, and in many ways, it’s an easy day to love. And not least, high summer is when one should be wearing Lilly Pulitzer, an American original. So there’s that…

But I also feel ambivalent about a holiday that, in its celebration of American independence, often morphs into a celebration of American exceptionalism, even sometimes by people who I think should know better. And frankly, I can’t get behind that.

Perhaps it's because at this point in my life, I’ve traveled to most of the major regions of the world. I’ve seen what other countries do well, and how and where they fail their citizens. In every place, there is inequality, and the citizens who lack political power and experience poorer health are almost always the poor, women, and racial, ethnic, and religious minorities. As much as I loved New Zealand - and am grateful for the superb healthcare I received in Auckland - I don’t think I have idealized it. I witnessed racism, sexism, and homophobia there. No place is perfect. But increasingly, I feel like the US is falling so, so far behind its peers. 

New data published in the Journal of the American Medical Association bear out my sentiments, at least as far as health outcomes go. Check out the chart and a distillation of the data here.

As Kevin Drum says, on most measures, “we suck.” We’re not below the mean in any of these major outcomes.  We’re simply not the leaders we think we are.

I’m not suggesting everyone should move to Iceland (I’ve heard it’s beautiful, but brrr). And even my beloved New Zealand isn’t tops in a lot of outcomes. But the US could – and should – do better.

I realize that I’m extremely, extremely fortunate. I’ve got a wonderful oncologist, and, most critically, I’ve got comprehensive health insurance that costs me relatively little. The Affordable Care Act should help bring more people into the fold of good healthcare, eventually resulting in better outcomes, but many may still be left behind. I don't think it's exceptional that I have good care, or at least it shouldn't be. I think it's lucky. I don't consider myself Christian, but I think of the lesson of Matthew 25:40, and often wonder, as many others have, whether we serve the least among us. 

It is not just healthcare where we fall far short. Worldwide, the US actually ranks higher on gun homicides per capita (26^th!) than we do in health outcomes among OECD member countries (28^th of 34). Hooray?

I'm thinking a lot about gun violence and race again this morning in the wake of George Zimmerman's acquittal of the killing of Trayvon Martin. That verdict, and its ironic counterpoint, the guilty verdict in the trial, also in Florida, of a woman, Marissa Alexander, who fired warning shots against an abusive husband. Zimmerman walks free, and the judge in Alexander's trial sentences her to 20 years. Trayvon Martin was black. Alexander is black. Both cases used the "Stand Your Ground" self-defense law to argue innocence. Two cases - one black unarmed teenager dead, one black mother with no criminal record soon to be incarcerated. 

In his review of the new film "Fruitvale Station," based on a case in which a young, unarmed black man was shot to death by a transit officer in Oakland, California, New York Times critic A.O. Scott, always astute, writes that the film succeeds in 

"defusing facile or inflammatory judgments and bending the audience’s reflexive emotional horror and moral outrage toward a necessary and difficult ethical inquiry. How could this have happened? How did we — meaning any one of us who might see faces like our own depicted on that screen — allow it?"

We need to ask ourselves these questions, and we need to stop our flag-waving long enough to engage these conversations. We could be exceptional. But right now we're exceptional only in all the wrong ways. 

*One can’t, and shouldn’t, count “Victory” [over Japan] Day , which is still a Rhode Island State Holiday.