This Upheaval Is How America Gets Better

America’s standing in the world was damaged by Jim Crow, a segregated military fighting World War II, resistance to school integrations, the My Lai massacre, and the torture of prisoners after 9/11. Americans are not good at getting things right at the outset; we are good at making things right over time. White Americans are being challenged to accept responsibility for allowing black Americans to live in fear of police brutality. This raising of consciousness will change the U.S. as a country, and well it should.

Police in Buffalo that shoved and injured an elderly man have been suspended. The Army is investigating the aircrew of a helicopter, bearing medical insignia, that hovered dangerously over a crowd in Washington, D.C. The Justice Department is being sued for its decision to aggressively clear peaceful protesters from Lafayette Square, near the White House. The government of the District of Columbia painted Black Lives Matter down the middle of the street leading to the White House. Businesses are falling over themselves to be associated with racial-justice efforts. President Donald Trump talks like a dictator, but the plethora of ways that Americans can frustrate his ambitions—coupled with the determination of millions of Americans to do so—is a much more powerful force.

Far from being a bludgeon of the state, the U.S. military is reinforcing its fealty to the Constitution rather than the president and modeling how to amplify black voices. The Air Force chief of staff flatly stated, “Every American should be outraged that the conduct exhibited by police in Minneapolis can still happen in 2020.” Months before the protests, the commandant of the Marine Corps banned any display of Confederate symbols. And since the Lafayette Square disgrace, the secretary of defense and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff have scrambled to put themselves on the side of restraint in the face of peaceful protests. These developments are a beautiful reminder that the American military is part of a broader civilian society, not a repressive force.

The U.S. isn’t the only country where racism is a persistent problem. It’s not the only country where police have immunity to prey on their fellow citizens. It’s not the only country where the government would expand its powers and evade accountability if it could. Recent protests in Amsterdam, London, and elsewhere show that what happens in America matters for the advance of human rights and civil liberties elsewhere. Even when its citizens struggle and stumble, the U.S. is still the world’s best hope for advancing the truths we hold to be self-evident.

When the governments of Germany, Australia, and—astonishingly—Turkey call on the U.S. to respect press freedom, it is an embarrassment. But many Americans welcome their condemnation to support our common commitment to unfettered freedom of the press. Americans are strong enough to bear the hypocrisy of Turkey’s criticism and honest enough to absorb what Australia and Germany are telling us.