My Proclamation on the Death of Congressman John Lewis.

This is a tribute to John Lewis because I know he believed what I believe. I know this because he and a handful of others, taught me to look closer at the way things work and to fight when you see injustice, with whatever tools you have.

I was moved by the relatively-expected passing of the U.S. House of Representatives John Lewis. Just as activism is going mainstream, again, for the first time in near-sixty years, one of its Godparents’ perishes. I was sitting in a motel when I saw the news, and it felt like twenty-five people had just left the room.

I’m a creative person and my primary focus area is community-related projects. I have the privilege of being able to travel in the course of my work. Here in the States, and abroad. I’ve been doing this at some frequency for about fifteen years now.

I have to admit, while I love my country of birth, America, it should be said that in a lot of ways, it ain’t shit. It is not the best country in the world and by way more than a flag-length. That Norman Rockwell web they’ve been spinning at us since the 1940s: it is pure propaganda. It’s not any different than how Clorox sells bleach.

For brevity’s sake, I will ask the venerable Jeff Daniels to explain just some of the reasons why America could, can and should be better.

What’s more, this land of the free of ours, doesn’t equate to freedom for everybody and isn’t morally, and therefore genuinely, ours.

Unless you are Native American, you or your ancestors came to this country as colonizers. Maybe you or they came with good intentions, looking for work and the opportunity to build a legacy for yourself and your family. And that’s a good thing in the context of the current day and recent history. But, other people’s legacies and potential future legacy had to be destroyed to make that possible. You are walking in a graveyard; never forget that.

All of us: we come to America or are born to those that do and we innately stand atop a body pile, built incrementally over hundreds of years, by people who would strip others of their humanity by weaponizing the color of someone’s skin or what zip code they were born in for that matter, all for their own financial gain.

Current day: you come here on the backs of people with families, working 59 hours a week for $8.25 an hour — - on the backs of non-violent offenders with obscene sentence terms, in Nasdaq traded prisons; pumping out any number of the products you buy and doing it for a $1.50 a day if they get paid at all. You come here at a time when you can blatantly lie, cheat and steal and be President.

You come here at a time where we as a society have chosen popularity over morality. A time where those that feel ignored, unjustly or otherwise, seek out their leaders like a traveling carnival on the lookout for a freak-show act.

So, I beg you, if you come here or are here already, get out of your internet and television search bubble. Learn what questions you might want to ask of your representative democracy — find your true leader, and help them fight their way into a position to change things, in a way that will benefit both you and others. (And sometimes just others.)

If you can’t find that person, step back and consider becoming that person yourself, because the world needs leaders to follow and this country of ours certainly does too.

In closing, the words of John Lewis:

‘Go out and get yourself into necessary trouble.’

Thank you for taking the time to read this. You’ll find me most active on Instagram @jasonmileslorimer