A pair of events juxtaposed one another Friday. One of them featured millions of American households watching Hamilton on television. Millions of other Americans watched the president's speech or rally from Mount Rushmore. But I would venture that few watched both (though read about what the other group watched).
I'm dismayed by the president's speech. That probably doesn't surprise you. It probably doesn't surprise you also that I find his idea of a memorial park pathetic. I'd rather not say more on that now.
Instead, I'd like to share with you the subversive and patriotic message I saw in Hamilton, a score and story I knew well but had not seen until Friday. The show is a glorification of American ideals. It also acknowledges the flaws of our founding figures. Those Founders and Framers possessed brilliant minds but were flawed in the way all humans are flawed. Casting the show with almost entirely people of color makes it clearer to see both the ideals and the flaws. It adopts their greatness and owns their near-sightedness.
And it reminds me that the greatest monument from that generation are the documents they created, enshrining those ideals and challenging us to live up to them. They pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor to establish a nation on those ideals, ideals which they knew were powerful but at times hard to live by. We struggled, just as they did, with the exact same dilemma.
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