M
ake America Great Again
— the motto of our current
president, in reference to the
distressed economy of the United States
during the 2016 election. What if, how-
ever, America was never great in the first
place? What if America does not need to
return to the past, but reach for a new
level of greatness? A 2017 survey from
the Pew Research Center shows that a
good proportion, right around 85 per-
cent, of Americans believe the U.S. either
“stands above all other countries in the
world” or is “one of the greatest coun-
tries, along with others.” The American
population is patriotic and proud, but
this patriotism blinds us from our faults.
The idea that we are not great now, but
must return to “former glory,” is claim-
ing that America used to be great despite
its systemically racist institutions, mas-
sive economic inequality, disorganized
healthcare system, horrific carbon
emissions and more. America must not
ignore these failures. It is easy to not
feel the real urgency of a crisis until you
see it with your own eyes. However, as a
nation with a population of over 300 mil-
lion people, Americans must change this
backward way of thinking to address
these domestic problems.
Americans seem to have a sense of
immunity when it comes to serious
threats. We think because we are “above
all other countries,” we will do things
the best way possible and trust the gov-
ernment to ensure this. However, our
government has proven itself extremely
flawed and incompetent with respect
to the deeply-rooted race problems
embedded in our society as a result
of slavery and in response to the
COVID-19 pandemic.
In American high schools, we were
taught that the United States was por-
trayed as the savior. When other nations
were struggling with corrupt leaders or
war, the U.S. would step in and save the
day with democracy (even if this meant
replacing a just leader with a corrupt
one). This teaching instills a sense of
superiority in the American popula-
tion. As the 2017 Pew Research Center
survey indicated that only 14 percent of
Americans believe there are nations bet-
ter than the U.S., the people in power
have failed at holding the government
accountable for our own humanitarian
crisis — the systemic and blatant racism
that continues to plague this nation.
This false sense of superiority has also
led to the failure of containing COVID-
19, as only 56 percent of American adults
view COVID-19 as a “real threat” as of
March 17, 2020, which shows a drop of
10 percentage points from the previous
month. Similar to taking personal action
against global warming, many Ameri-
cans prefer to not inconvenience them-
selves, often at the expense of others,
because they have not seen the threat
with their own eyes and therefore feel
falsely immune to worldwide threats. It
may be inconvenient to shop in person
rather than online, eat less meat, recy-
cle, compost and use reusable cups, but
these are small everyday changes that
would make a difference towards a
more sustainable future — just like
wearing a mask can lower COVID-19
transmission levels.
According to a PBS Marist poll, the
percentage of Americans that view
the pandemic as a “real threat” has
decreased from February to March,
while COVID-19 cases in the United
States have continued to increase. Last
year, I took a class called Philosophy 183:
Critical Reasoning with Professor Anna
Edmonds, a LEO Lecturer I. This class
focused on the failures our brain makes
when reasoning. One failure we studied
was how the brain feels more comfort-
able with risks it has already survived.
Once we have survived a risk for a period
of time, the risk feels less and less scary,
even if the probability of a negative out-
come remains the same or increases.
As Americans continue to survive this
pandemic without contracting COVID,
their already heightened sense of
immunity will only increase.
America has done many great things
of which its citizens should be proud
of. The values of liberty and justice that
define our goals in a democracy are great.
But these values have not been achieved.
The Pledge of Allegiance states, “with
liberty and justice for all.” The U.S. has
allowed this pledge to only apply to the
white and wealthy of this nation for too
long, with support for Black Lives Mat-
ter maxing at around 40 percent until
the current rise of the movement.
It is time for Americans to wake up to
reality and acknowledge that although
greatness is achievable, we aren’t
close. The first step toward progress is
acknowledging that we as a nation are
flawed. It has taken centuries for white
Americans to realize how significant
race inequity is throughout our judi-
cial, housing, law enforcement systems
and more. Perhaps if students were
taught current and historical crises in
our own country and not just abroad,
white Americans would be more able to
reflect and make a change. If we want
our nation to function as coherent and
equitable and be truly great someday, we
must hold our government accountable
to protect the rights of ALL Americans,
and be willing to sacrifice small incon-
veniences, like wearing a mask, for the
greater good of the world.
5
Thursday, July 16, 2020
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
5
OP
OPINION
ON
America, look in the mirror
LIZZY PEPPERCORN | COLUMNIST
Lizzy Peppercorn can be reached at
epepperc@umich.edu.
MAEVE SKELLY | COLUMNIST
T
he COVID-19 pandemic has
forced colleges and universi-
ties in the United States to
consider and implement alternative
“public health-informed” fall semes-
ters. Many schools are trying to avoid
an all-online semester, but as cases con-
tinue to rise in the U.S., remote classes
are becoming increasingly unavoid-
able. On July 6, less than two months
before most colleges are set to reopen,
President Donald Trump’s adminis-
tration released a statement through
the U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement that had the potential to
further complicate potential reopen-
ing plans. According to the Student
and Exchange Visitor Program,
if a college is offering solely online
classes, international students attend-
ing school would have two choices:
transfer to a college offering some
in-person classes or leave the country.
On Tuesday, July 14, ICE rescinded
this policy. While this is a huge win
for international students, this rule
should have never been proposed in
the first place, and should force U.S.
universities to reckon with the fact that
international students are valued not
for any potential economic contribu-
tions, but because they are students.
This policy would have been a gross
human rights violation that would
have harmed international students.
Every student has the right to learn
and if they are here on a visa, the
right to feel safe without the threat of
removal. This policy infringes on both
of those rights. Students who signed a
lease for the academic semester would
have been stuck with it, searching for
a subletter in a market that has little to
no demand. Students who are in their
last year of school would no longer be
able to graduate as planned, plunging
them into further uncertainty and pil-
ing on financial difficulties. Students
whose visas expire after the academic
year would not be able to have them
renewed, leaving them unable to
return to the U.S. to finish their
degree. Students forced to leave the
U.S. would potentially be returning
to unstable environments unsuit-
able for academic work and face
challenges posed by faulty internet
connection, inability to access edu-
cational resources, disruptive time
differences and unsafe health condi-
tions in the midst of the pandemic.
Since ICE announced its student
visa policy, many have invoked the
economic benefits of international
students as a counterargument. Uni-
versities in the U.S. have long relied on
the revenue generated by international
students’ tuition (international stu-
dents pay up to three times more than
in-state students at public universities)
and the fact that international students
contribute $39 billion to the national
economy. These arguments are harm-
ful in opposing human rights violations
perpetrated by ICE. To reduce interna-
tional students to their economic value
is degrading. To suggest that their
rights should be protected relative to
that economic value is immoral.
ICE has a disturbing reputation of
dehumanizing those who do not enjoy
the privileges of United States citizen-
ship. To defend international students
from ICE based on their economic sta-
tus neglects the activism and struggle
of marginalized groups — especially
refugees, migrant workers and other
undocumented individuals — that
have long fought to abolish ICE with-
out the benefit of robust economic
power. International students deserve
protection from ICE not because of
their economic contributions, but
because everyone — from the wealthi-
est international student to the hum-
blest refugee at the border — deserves
safety, dignity and belonging.
Beyond defending basic human
rights, this policy would have made
even less sense on the stage of the glob-
al COVID-19 pandemic, and will likely
increase the spread of the disease. The
U.S. has over one million international
students each year. Deporting even a
fraction of these students and forcing
them to travel in unsafe conditions
creates a large risk for a second wave
of COVID-19 to affect other countries
that may have recovered or controlled
the spread. The policy also would
have put international students
themselves at risk for contracting
COVID-19 if forced to leave their
current homes in the U.S.
In the policy, ICE stated that inter-
national students would have the
option to transfer to a school that is
offering in-person classes. However,
this option to transfer is not a true
alternative. ICE made its announce-
ment less than two months before the
beginning of the semester, rendering it
nearly impossible for students to trans-
fer to another university based solely
on the timing of application deadlines.
Masked xenophobia under ICE’s rescinded student ban
Maeve Skelly is a senior in the
Gerald R. Ford School of Public
Policy and can be reached at
skellym@umich.edu.
Read more at MichiganDaily.
Graphic by Hibah Chughtai