Failure to grieve

 Elise Boulding, a sociologist and Quaker activist, got her finger on the country’s central problem: a “failure to grieve over its shortcomings.”

It’s a country that exterminated the indigenous people and stole the land; kidnapped and enslaved Africans because it wanted an exploitable source of labor; asked people of Japanese descent to fight in World War II while imprisoning their families in camps. The list of shortcomings is long — if you pay attention. Boulding is right that most Americans simply don’t.

It’s the Fourth of July, and instead of a celebratory day, I’m thinking of a somber day, a day to grieve over failures. I think, given the circumstances, that’s the place to start.