Conditional Citizens: On Belonging in America

To conclude the collection, Lalami covers the issues presented in the prior essay but turns them around to discuss not what is wrong, but what would be right moving forward. Insisting on rights like healthcare and education, as well as personal freedoms like movement and religion, emphasizes the contradictions in the prior essays, in which certain groups are denied access and freedom. Lalami discusses the present situation—that of 2020, the time of writing—in America and looks at issues that are prevalent both now and across American history. Challenges like fake news and misleading politics seem recent, but they have always been part of the American system, and opening the essay with a quote from Jefferson serves as a reminder that many of the faults Lalami finds in America have always been present.

One of the key elements in “Do Not Despair” is Lalami’s claim that compromise cannot be reached on all issues. She cites the issue of separating families at the border, but her claim reaches across all the essays in the collection. On issues of bodily autonomy, for example, there can be no equality when some bodies are more regulated than others. With voting, there can be no equality when only some groups are allowed the right and ability to vote. Financially, poverty creates a divide that cannot be bridged by compromise, and, with religion, compromise cannot serve to disadvantage some religions but not others. Lalami comments that compromise may be possible on issues like budget spending, but there cannot be any compromise that allows infringement of citizens’ freedoms and rights.

When Lalami urges Americans to “make the kinds of decisions that, decades from now, will result in a better, more equal country” (165), she is referring to the voting process, in which Americans vote for politicians but do not take responsibility for their actions. Many voters make their decisions based on a single issue or specific categories of issues without understanding the far-reaching consequences those decisions have on other groups of Americans or on the international stage. Just as Lalami acknowledges her privileges and her disadvantages, she asks the reader to do the same and ask what can be done to make American society and the world more equitable.

For the final paragraph of the essay, Lalami chooses to include an extended quote from the Jefferson Memorial, which comments on the need for laws and governments to keep pace with the developments of humanity and the progress of society. Thus, she emphasizes that even the Founders of America were aware that not all their laws and systems would remain suitable to the country forever. Initially, wealthy white male Americans were the only citizens; as more and more groups have gained citizenship, the imbalance of power has only started to shift closer to equality. Older racist, sexist, and colonial justifications for disparities across different identity groups are wavering in the face of science and reason. Lalami integrates this progressive view into the quote, pushing for a more sincere manifestation of equality in the American system.