 we maintain the immipartheid infection, spreading it to others, allowing it to grow in complexity, advance in seriousness, posing an ever greater threat to the present health and welfare of our entire nation, our prospects for a full recovery, and a healthy, vibrant future.
This is not the first time in U.S. history we have succumbed to the insufferable angst of determining what to do with ourselves in a predicament like this. In the collected essays of America’s revered James Baldwin, Baldwin recorded and characterized the plight the American Negro (to use his words), as he wrestled with the issues of democracy, race and the American identity. The parallels to our current quandary are obvious:
“This is why his history and his progress, his relationship to all other Americans, has been kept in the social arena. He is a social and not a personal or a human problem; to think of him is to think of statistics, slums, rapes, injustices, remote violence; it is to be confronted with an endless cataloguing of losses, gains, skirmishes; it is to feel virtuous, outraged, helpless, as though his continuing status among us were somehow analogous to disease – cancer, perhaps, or even tuberculosis – which must be checked even though it cannot be cured. In this arena, the black man acquires quite another aspect from that which he has in life. We do not know what to do with him in life….Our dehumanization of the Negro then is indivisible from our dehumanization of ourselves: the loss of our own identity is the price we pay for the annulment of his.”[v]
The immunity we thought we had developed to being susceptible to this form of societal malady appears to have broken through again – or did we ever really have immunity?
Triggering the Immune Response
Most diseases are contracted inadvertently. When you become ill, you don’t go around looking for the source of the bug do you? Yet, in the case of immipartheid, we, once again, focus our attention on identifying a scapegoat; someone to blame. No issue (other than abortion) seems to lance the American under-belly like the issue of U.S. immigration reform. The venom and puss that ooze out of this polarized tirade about the appropriate treatment for our malady are toxic, shameful, and a stench to those around us. Our vitriolic stubbornness and closed-mindedness serve only to forestall the development and implementation of the required consensus for initiating the treatment regimen. Our outbursts ricochet around the planet, causing the global community to pause and reassess their view of the American identity. In the United States today, we need a new dose of reality, as characterized by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright:
“I regret that we have fostered a political culture that rewards the extremes, a culture in which dogmatic belief is deemed a virtue and open-mindedness a weakness, and sarcasm and slanderous attacks frequently drown out intelligent discussion. Haven’t we had enough of this? We need a dose of unity.”[vi]
In his inauguration speech on January 10, 2001 President George W. Bush proclaimed to the Nation: America, at its best, is compassionate. In the quiet of American conscience, we know that deep, persistent poverty is unworthy of our nation’s promise. And whatever our views of its cause, we can agree that children at risk are not at fault. Abandonment and abuse are not acts of God, they are failures of love.[vii]
Perhaps Albright’s prescription for a dose of unity and Bush’s measure of love are just what the doctor ordered. It just might be the place to start. Yet, these elements seem foreign to the vast majority of the diagnoses being bantered about today.
Triggering the essential immune system response is fundamental to developing a vaccine to effectively address the immipartheid outbreak. However, it’s counter-intuitive. Salk essentially killed the poliovirus, yet kept it intact just enough to activate the necessary immune response. An immune response is basically the way our body recognizes and defends itself against bacteria, viruses, and substances that appear f