American Creed

Nate Rightmier

In the PBS film American Creed, Joan Blades, an American entrepreneur and progressive political activist, believes that people in our country focus too much on the differences between us instead of realizing the similarities that we have. Blades said, “I think fundamentally all progressives are very concerned about having a fair playing field, Here I’ve had my life get more exciting than I ever imagined and I want that opportunity for everyone and I would give you that just about every American feels the same way they want to have that opportunity.” What I think Joan is trying to say about this that to have the same playing field that it just doesn’t come to you, you have to but some effort into solving these problems that us as people are having together. Believe this to be significant for that fact that if you do have an idea or organization that if you stick great things can happen as to what happen to Mrs. Blades being an American entrepreneurship.

In the same film, Junot Diaz, a Dominican American writer, Diaz mentions in the American Creed clip that to being in America is like being in a library. No matter who you are you have the same privileges to check out as many as book you like. Instead of people decimalizing on other races, age, or religion we could improve on working our skills as a citizen to make our nation stronger. We can work on these skills buy opening our minds considering other things that we don’t really consider doing with race and religion.

The problem we are having today in America is that we aren’t communicating and getting our different ideas out there. As Joan said in the clip of the American Creed, “We are so focused on our differences that we start to forget what we have in common as people.” I believe this to be really true because just in the last decade I have realized our country has been more separated since I have been around. People all over the states don’t believe that they have the same chance to live the American dream as others, those people who were born into poverty are the people that are causing the problems and at the same time trying to change their ways. The key to get out of poverty and poor conditions is education. If you take your time and get very well educated you can use that value to make yourself a better citizen and help the people around you and even give them some of your knowledge to strengthen the community.

There is a woman who is changing the lives of poor people who are living in poverty all over the world. The person who is making this all happen is Leila Janah the founder of Samascourse and LXMI which are companies that share the same value for getting low income families out poverty. She found a way to help these people make 4 times more income than when they first started on these programs. These companies work with the biggest technology companies and these families that are living in poverty just take a couple hours of the day and they just share advertisements on these well known companies. So talking about this what is the best way to get these families out of poverty, the answer is simply give these people work. With me saying this, it relates to my issues for the fact that these people are having chances of getting out of their old life styles and becoming closer to make their American dreams.

I believe the most significant values to unite the country are: unity, education, citizenship, equality, and community. Education is the most important value because it can change people's perspectives of themselves and can make them more accepting of others. Through education citizens can learn the importance of equality, unity, and community. Americans should pay more attention to these values knowing that if they specialize in these categories it would foster a greater sense of responsibility towards fellow citizens regardless of economic status, ethnic background or type of education. Doing these things would make our nation a lot stronger and more unified.