President Ronald Reagan once said, “America is a shining city upon a hill whose beacon light guides freedom-loving people everywhere.” So, with that being said, I ask, “what’s wrong America?” 

Folks around the world have always looked to America for answers and direction on how a true democracy works but our history tells us different. It appears to me that for some reason, some of us have always refused to give others the same rights we enjoy and if we dare give them the same unalienable rights we have, then we must put stipulations on their rights that we don’t impose upon ourselves. 

Somehow, we Americans have always been quick to point out the mote in another country’s eye but never acknowledge the beam in our own eye. For instance, the right to vote. This seems like an honorable gesture that every American of age should have but not so fast. One of the laws our founding fathers required in 1789 was that in order to vote in the newly formed United States, one must be a property owner or a tax-paying white male.

So even in the beginning of a new nation, the right to vote appears to have been a privilege for some more than a right for others. I wonder how those non-property owners or non-tax paying soldiers (for the record both white and Black) that fought the British for America’s Independence felt after the war was over, learning that their voice would not be heard. I know how I would have felt. 

Surely the founding fathers would fix this oversight and give them voting privileges, right? After all, America had declared itself an independent country, with the belief that “All men were created equal.” You see the problem here, many that fought had no voting rights, but if you were a property owner or taxpayer you didn’t have to fight for your own independence but you still had the right to vote.

The shinning city on a hill with the beacon light guiding freedom-loving people as described by Ronald Reagan always appears to be turned off when it comes to shining that light on us. That’s one of the things that’s wrong, America. Maybe we should have had an internal beacon light shining on all freedom-loving Americans first. Now isn’t that’s an interesting concept. Let’s make America greater by giving all Americans the same unalienable rights as outlined when we declared our Independence from the British.

What’s wrong, America? Well is it wrong to wait 104 years after the Declaration of Independence to pass the 15th amendment to the Constitution that prevented states from denying the right to vote on grounds of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”

What’s wrong, America? Is it wrong for America to wait 111 years after the Declaration of Independence to give Native Americans the right to vote and then tell them that they must disassociate themselves from their tribe as the Dawes Act of 1887 required.

What’s wrong, America? Is it wrong for America to wait 154 years to pass the 19th amendment that guaranteed women the right to vote.

What’s wrong, America? Is it wrong for America to wait 167 years to give Chinese Americans the right to vote or 185 years to give the residents of Washington, D.C., our nation’s capital the right to vote in presidential elections. 

It’s easy to see why Sojourner Truth felt the way she did when she gave her great speech “Ain’t I a Woman” in Arkon, Ohio in 1851 at the women’s convention, when she said, “Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter.” All Sojourner Truth was saying was all this talk about negro rights and women’s right, there is obviously something wrong in America.

So why are we still talking about voting rights in 2022, are we giving lip service to the John Lewis Voting Rights Act or pretending we care about the Voting Rights Bill of 2021? For the last 246 years, we still haven’t figured out what’s wrong, or did we. I think we had figured it out in 1776 but we just refuse to be inclusive, so until we as a nation start treating every American the same, there is always going to be something wrong.

Image how other countries feel, when we send election watchers to make sure that they hold free and honest elections and we have issues here about the results of our elections. Even locally, we often times get conflicting guidelines on the election process. 

So, it does not matter if we make it illegal to give people water while they are standing in line to vote. It doesn’t matter if we change the rules on voting to disenfranchise or discourage people from voting. It doesn’t even matter if we change voting precincts every election cycle. We can claim this or claim that, we know what’s wrong, there is an elephant in the room and it’s called not being fair.

So, until we as a country, a state, a county and a city treat all our citizens fair, then we will forever say: What’s wrong, America? As a country we have never passed our problems to another country to fix. These United States have always addressed every issue we had head on and in due time solved it. Don’t y’all think it’s time to solve the voting rights issue in America.

J.D. Rice is a former Valdosta Fire Department chief and a member of The Valdosta Daily Times editorial board.