We The People

I had to memorize the Preamble to our Constitution in 7th grade.  My class also learned all the about the Declaration of Independence and colonization.  Of course in seventh grade I had no idea what messages were being presented within the text of two of our historically significant documents but now as an 18 year old college student I will begin to decipher words that I still have memorized but never knew the meanings of.  

When I first looked over the Declaration of Independence this semester I noticed a few things.

• Men is capitalized 
  
• "all men are created equal"
  
• When you scan the document all you see is "He"
  
• Words like War, Alliance, Commerance all remind me of men.  Why is this?  Is this because the very men that wrote this and founded our country established these ideas for me?
  
• Another question I had "Is there gender unity when they say "we" and and speak of the people of the colonies?  
  

As we discussed the reading in class more ideas formed for me.  I now believe that there was no gender unity when the word "we" is discussed.  We was meant for the colonies.  Not involved in that we were slaves, indigenous, poor, children, women, elders, impaired and some men.  Immediately I think "Great, my founding fathers did not want me to be apart of this nation."  At least without equal rights.  I am saddened by the situation that was set in place for me by men so long ago.  And if I am affected as a white women who is wealthy then I can barely imagine what it must be like for the poor or blacks or indigenous.  

The way that our nation was established (by white males in power) has been prevalent in most of my life and what I have seen.  First of all I have been raised around money and those who have the most money or wealth are the most respected or well known in my community.  My community is ran by white males.  They are the head of the households.  They bring home the money while most mothers in my neighbor stay home with their children.  My family may be an exception as both my parents work but I use to see my dad as the one with the final say, he held the power. It just what I knew.  Masculinity is also apparent in all the boys playing sports and I only know one gay male from my community.  My elementary school had about 5 black kids enrolled.  I think that since my community was mostly white that it fueled racism.  I do not think it was uncommon to hear racist comments or remarks come out of friends mouths when seeing a black person in our neighborhood.  

I wonder if this is what our founding fathers imagined for the future of the nation when they wrote those incredibly biased and slanted words.  All people were not created equal when the Declaration of Independence was written and it is obvious 300 years later.