Opinion: Is the American Melting Pot Boiling Over

I love to celebrate the 4th of July. This country with all it flaws has given me the opportunity to have a long wonderful life as the grandson of two poor Italian immigrant grandfathers who came to this country for a future. My family’s story is a great American story.

However others came to this country enslaved. Many of their descendants are unhappy with their families American experience.

Knowing there is no right way to do the wrong thing America has grappled with correcting this wrong during my whole lifetime. More money then spent on wars has been spent to right this wrong. Some results are good most results seem disappointing. Who really has the answers to why? I know I don’t.

This Coronavirus epidemic has taught me how much I love my freedoms. Being told I can’t do this or that is troublesome. I suppose going through a whole lifetime of that is horrible. That perhaps is the crux of “The Civil Rights” movement.

However America is not just about one issue or one people’s wrong. It’s about opportunities. It’s about being given a chance to pull yourself up from nothing to something. That is the American tradition I celebrate on the 4th of July. My grandfathers risked everything they had for a chance to have a better life. They paid what little money they had to come here on boats. I can assure you it was not first class travel. Now three generations later on this day I give thanks to a country that gave my grandfathers a chance that ended in success and giving me a good long life.

It was not easy. They were insulted. They was segregated against. They were told they were inferior and they were not permitted in clubs, homes and way too many jobs. However with true determination they worked around those obstacles and made lives. An immigrant competitor of mine who escaped the Holocaust and created a business called General Rag, (that was located in Brooklyn) once said to me when both our businesses were going through hard times, “I kiss the ground every morning for what this country had done for me.” Today, July 4th I kiss the ground for what this country has given my family.

Tensions are boiling over. Some people are very unhappy about so many things. Many wrongs to them may never be righted and that is tragic. But this country was founded “with malice toward none and charity for all.” I think that’s a good start to work from. I don’t have much, but what I did have was the freedom to succeed or fail.