Our country ’tis of thee… that we tell a complicated tale this Memorial Day. Here are my Papa and Nana on their wedding day, Feb. 27th 1943.

Technically, the “right” day to honor Papa’s service would be Veterans Day, since he trained as a pilot but never saw combat and lived to a happy old age (Memorial Day is for those who lost their lives in service).

But really, I’m thinking of him today because there’s no wrong day to honor his willingness to die in battle against a regime that was imprisoning and killing people for being of his own Jewish ancestry.

And there’s no wrong day to honor the truth that his country – our country – was even then imprisoning OUR own people for being of Japanese ancestry.

That the US military in which he served was segregated, and was even then allowing the persecution and murder of servicemen of color here at home and depriving them of the service benefits that would have built wealth for their families. (https://wapo.st/3vG11ks)

That this Memorial Day is also the centennial day of memory for hundreds murdered and generations impoverished by the Tulsa Race Massacre of May 31-June 1, 1921 — just months before my Papa’s birth in 1922. He lived until I was 33, and the generational assets that he built through his access to education and homeownership via the GI Bill changed the course of my life, so it’s easy to see that the impact of the Massacre is not distant or irrelevant to what we see around us in our lives today.

That on Memorial Day a year ago, a wave of righteous uprisings was beginning in protest of the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and far far too many more.

We need to hold these truths not because they are self-evident, but exactly because they have been hidden in the tales we tell about this country that we love. And as any child must learn, a truth hidden becomes a lie.

Our history isn’t simple. As Willam Goldman said, “Anyone who says differently is selling something.” Selling textbooks that lie to our kids. Selling the false comfort that nothing’s wrong and no change is needed, that we already have liberty and justice for all. Selling the untroubled continuation of White supremacy.

The truth is, it’s complicated. The essence of Memorial Day was always meant to be about gratitude and about mourning. Today I’m embracing that complexity with gratitude for those who gave their lives, to protect a freedom that has so often given us cause to mourn its failure.