Exposure

At one time, I had a part-time job with a company that did remediation of homes and buildings that had suffered from floods, fire and mold.

One of the first jobs I worked on was in a relatively new building, a college dorm. The rooms looked fine upon first glance, and even at the second look, but the boss told me that there was mold behind the walls. He explained that the dorms were built poorly, with nothing by plywood, covered by a façade of brick, facing the rain, snow and wind. The construction of these buildings allowed moisture to build up between the plywood and façade which became a fertile breeding ground for mold.

As I stood in the living room of the dormitory suite, I could see none of this. The room had a sofa and some chairs, a TV, rug, coffee table and lamps. These were all moved out of the way, covered with plastic, and after setting up our tools and putting on masks and protective gear, we got to work!

Since I did not have much experience with actual construction, I was given the job of demolition…which was fine with me. I was given a mallet and crowbar and began to break down the drywall. As I pulled the first piece out I saw that the boss had been right, the space between the walls was wet and filled with black mold!

If a sharp-eyed maintenance worker had not noticed a damp spot on a wall, the mold might have remained hidden and grown, putting not only the building but also the students at risk!

However, before we could make things better…to remediate…we first had to tear down the walls and expose the mold, so that we could eliminate it before fixing the problem that caused it and rebuilding.

It could be argued that this is what’s happening in our nation today.

I have read articles and seen reports of the resurgence of racism in America over the past few years, and people decrying that “…this is not America!” The sad thing is that this IS America, at least the America that kept slaves, wiped out the indigenous people, enforced Jim Crow laws, denied women the vote, interned Japanese, developed and used an Atom Bomb in war, and committed so many other sins.

As much as I disagree with the policies and ideology of the current regime, it can be argued that they have exposed our mold. With their rhetoric, the hate and racism that has been hidden in the shadows is now coming out in the open…where it can finally be ‘remediated’.

Although we are a broken people, there is hope in knowing that this is NOT who we want to be as a nation, that we have seen that we can be better! We are also the nation that has may good intentions. Our doctors have helped to cure diseases like Polio and many cancers, we have provided aid to those who have experienced disasters (both foreign and domestic), offered assistance to the poor, went to war to fight great evil, survived terrible tragedies, and was founded on the principle that all people are created equal….and now we have a real opportunity to live up to these grand ideas.

Unfortunately, we will not be able to make these changes if we continue to fight amongst ourselves, with the attitude that “whatever you want is wrong…simply because YOU want it!’ regardless of the merit of the idea. Much of this conflict is rooted in the fear of change, an end to the ‘traditional’ view of America (i.e. the increasing diversity of our nation).

It is this contention that provides a medium for the growth of the mold that threatens to tear us apart as a nation, and further divide us as a people. This is why it is so important to do more than just clean up the mess, but to take the steps needed to prevent new mold from growing by restoring and rebuilding, stronger and better.

One of these steps is to reassure the people who are afraid, to let them know that these changes will not leave them behind, especially if they are part of that change…and this means we will all have to re-learn cooperation. This will be needed because ‘remediation’ will not be an easy task, one we will need to work on together. We may have to compromise on things we do not completely agree with, but it helps to keep in mind that no one has all the answers, but we can learn from our differences, and move forward to make our nation and world a better place for all people.

And there is hope, because we want to be better. We strive to be that gleaming city on the hill, a light unto the world, this is a good goal, but it may be best to become a part of the light that leads us to a brighter future. It may not be a perfect world, there will still be mold, but working together we can continue clear away that mold, in order to improve life for all people.