Hamilton and the Idea of America
There are multiple times when EA and I were watching Hamilton last night when I felt my heart expand inside me. To be sure some of those moments revolve around the musical’s beautiful snapshots of love, camaraderie, parenthood, and forgiveness.
Yet there are also moments—primarily in “My Shot” and “Yorktown”—in which my heart swelled with pride for my country. As you see brave women and men of all ethnicities struggle for one another’s freedoms, you cannot help but think, “This is what it should be like.”
“Should be” is the operative phrase and it always has been. Hamilton is historical fiction (If you have a friend who is non-ironically wet blanketing people with this fact, pray for them because they don’t have much fun in life). With People of Color playing the founders of this nation, it is consciously more concerned with the Idea of America, where that idea has failed, and the continued struggle for it today.
Ever since Thomas Jefferson wrote the words “We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal” (I will forever hear the Schuyler sisters when I read that phrase), equality has been this country’s calling card. It is an idea that has drawn so many people to this country’s shores. It fills people with hope.
The paradox is that hope can get dashed upon the rocks. Equality may be American orthodoxy but it sure isn’t American orthopraxy. This land was stolen from the people who lived here and many of them were slaughtered in that quest. This nation was brutally built on the backs of people who were ripped from their homelands and separated from their families.
When Black people were finally freed from slavery, an ever evolving system continued to subjugate them to their white neighbors in varying ways. Air conditioners and airplanes were invented a decade and a half before women had the right to vote. There is a lot to celebrate in this nation’s history, but it is littered with people who have been stepped on and over. I think that’s one of the reasons why the “All Lives Matter” retort bothers me so much. All doesn’t mean all in this country; it hasn’t since 1776.
I know this sounds like I’m bashing the United States on the Fourth of July. That is not my intent. I find a lot of resonance in the words of the artist Propaganda: “I don’t hate America, just demands she keeps her promises.” There are a lot of promises that go unkept. Has there been improvement? Yes. Am I grateful to live here? Of course, but I also realize that I was born in a super privileged place. I don’t hate this country. I want it to do a better job. That spark I feel when I watch Hamilton is the recognition of something amazing that could be but is not always there.
Plus the music is so dang good.
