Reflections of Washington DC

I recently returned from a trip to Washington DC. I went there for Drug Free Communities training. I went early so that I could see some of what Washington DC had to offer. It was a real eye-opener for me. Being in the capital city of our country and going through all the museums and seeing the government buildings gave me a new perspective on this country.

One of the things that I noticed is how many of the visitors spoke languages other than English or if they did speak English, it was a foreign accent. Washington DC is not just a destination for the citizens of our country by citizens of the world. This was the case no matter where I went in the area of the Government buildings, the monuments, or the museums.

Going through all the government buildings and museums created quite a space for reflection. The Natural History museum going back millions/billions of years on our planet gave me pause to contemplate how little time humans have spent on this planet but that did not mean that there was not life on this planet. Life that existed for millions of years. I egocentric we are as a species to think if we are not aware of it or was part of it, it didn't exist.

The Native American museum and noting the deliberate and willful eradication of the indigenous population. How as a nation we have lost language and culture of human beings that was founded on the concept of tolerance. As I in the Constitution Exhibit hall of the Library of Congress I listened to JFK, Martin Luther King, several other individuals speaking of the inequality of rights for Native Americans, Blacks and of Women.

Then while I as at the Supreme Court Building I listened to Justice Ruth Ginsberg as she spoke about how in the constitution where it said "we the people," the people were a very small group of white males. It did not include the native population, blacks or women. She spoke of how wonderful it was that the "we the people" has been interpreted as all those groups of population even though it wasn't that way in the beginning.

Now with all the history of how we have fallen so short of those ideals, we are now just a couple of weeks away from our first Black President's inauguration. The excitement in DC is undeniable. President Obama is already included in the president’s exhibit in the American History Museum and Michelle Obama is in the First Lady Exhibit. The paraphernalia is overwhelming. It is everywhere.

I left DC reflecting that with all of America's past shortcomings, as a country we are so much closer to the ideals of religious freedom and tolerance that people left Europe seeking but they themselves denied for so many. I sense that what written in the Constitution and Bill of Rights is closer to reality than what the founding fathers could have imagined. It is a good time to be an American.

(There is much I could say about the President Obama's statement of retaking the high morale ground of the Geneva Convention and opposing torture but this is another time and another post.)