Photo by woodleywonderworks

By Sarah D. Park

I’ve been rewatching The West Wing, a political TV series based off of the day-to-day of a president and his staff. In our times that not even a writer could’ve invented, the show has proven to be a comforting balm to my cynical soul because it casts the American government at its idealistic and hope-filled best. The West Wing is a beautiful white liberal lie where more often than not, the Oval Office is bathed in golden afternoon light, and everyone is exceptionally competent whilst witty.

Donna Moss is one of its ensemble characters and every now and then, she acts as a proxy for the “average American” viewer, asking questions or listening to explanations about how the government works from her boss, a Deputy White House Chief of Staff. Why is my tax money going to this? Why should we bail out this country on its overdue loans? Why is our government involved in that issue?

It’s moments like these when Donna confounds me. Given, she does work in the White House as a senior assistant, but she speaks with the royal “we”, as if the government needs to answer to her and that her understanding of a national situation matters. She speaks as if she identifies with the government while representing someone like me and I have zero resonance with that.

Her attitude makes me ask: Can a nation be a community?

When I think of community, I think of people who take care of each other. A diverse group of individuals who inspire with their lives or a like-minded group of people building toward a common vision. When I think of our nation, I think of neither one of these attributes.

For most of my life, I have lived in ignorance of who was my elected official, I barely know how to prepare, let alone vote for ballot initiatives, and this ignorance has not changed my life. Had I been more civically engaged all that time, I doubt anything would have been different. As a middle-class educated Asian American, my proximity to whiteness — both imagined and felt — has sheltered me from the worst that comes with changes in power.

How did I learn this disengagement? Who should’ve taught me how to participate? Do all white parents teach this to their children? It never occurred to my parents. They trusted my schools to teach me all I needed to know to navigate this country that was not their own, but my education didn’t either. So I’m left staring at Donna in quizzical wonder, then hopelessness, for I’ve never thought the government answers to me or represents me. I’ve never felt claimed by America even though I claim being American. After Trump was elected, I steeled myself to feel the shockwaves in my life and I was shocked to feel nothing. At that time, I was living in Oakland, disconnected from most of my Asian American communities back home in LA, and I saw terrible things rapidly change in the lives of my surrounding loved ones in black and brown communities, just not in my own life. So again, what was happening in America was happening to others.

I don’t necessarily think I need to be drastically traumatized in order to feel American, though that seems to be happening a lot. For the sake of my growing love for communities beyond those I personally claim, I fumble as I learn about how to become civically engaged. And I’ve noticed that “anti-racist” is the new buzzword that’s circulating these days. It’s a term that stirs the fight in me to actively work against whiteness in our institutions, and live beyond the passivity of simply not being racist. I wonder if I should aspire to Donna-like agency, and I wonder what steps could be taken for this nation to be mine, not by circumstance of birth but by resolve of participation and a refusal of this minor role in this national community with all its history, sins, consequences, highs, and lows. To quote Meenadchi: “I do not engage in hopelessness. Ever. Black folk require hope in order to survive. I choose solidarity with their survival. I remember that solidarity has a long history before me. Collective solidarity is our birthright and our joy.” Layer onto that a faith in a resurrected Jesus, and there is absolutely no excuse to not live, vote, and work towards hope.

Sarah D. Park is a freelance writer whose work focuses on the cultivation of cross-racial dialogue with a Christian faith orientation. She is also a story producer for Inheritance Magazine and manages communications for several organizations. She currently calls the Bay Area her home but is an Angeleno through and through.