"Not Like Us" and the national heartbeat

Learning about the napkins folded like flowers, and the platypus, and the mangrove swamps, white dolphins, and the rings around Saturn, and all those wild stories waiting to be written down and read.

I have listened to “Not Like Us” over and over since it came out. I feel this song beating inside me.

There is a reason this song won so many awards. Kendrick Lamar is a talented musician. This song catches the national heartbeat. I am the least qualified person to write about rap/hip-hop, so I won’t try to speak over the voices of lived experience. I know about Drake. I know about the diss war. But if you didn’t know any of that, you would know this song. It is America singing to you.

One of the first lines I heard as a child was, “They are not like us.”

I asked, “Can I talk to that girl?”

The answer: “They are not like us.”

They was anyone who was not part of our small evangelical Christian group. There were three hundred of us. We were the only ones going to heaven. Everyone else was going to hell. We were Noah’s Ark. They were not.

Everyone outside the Farm. Not like us.

After I left the Farm, church. I thought it would be home. The preacher said, “This is the only church. Everyone who isn’t a Baptist. Not like us. Stay away from them.”

I tried another church. The Presbyterians were the only ones going to heaven.

I started at a college with all African American students. I learned about us and them. I learned about wealth disparity. I learned about power. Taken and given. Taken and taken.

“Not Like Us” taps the heartbeat of America because our social landscape has not been more divided since the Civil War.

If you believe that generations change and that millennials will prevail (which is the thinking of the Fourth Turning), you believe that we are in the final part of that fourth turn, the generational shift that started in 2008.

According to the wisdom of Strauss and Howe, these cycles started in the 1500s. The American Revolution was a cycle, the Civil War, the Great Depression ending in World War II. Each cycle has included huge upheaval and disruption, but at the end of the cycle, we have rebuilt a stronger institution.

We are nearing the end of the Fourth Turning. If we’re lucky, we could turn toward a positive societal resolution with the younger generations—millennials and Gen Z—taking the lead in creating a world where we can trust and rely on each other.

In families, we are better at listening. In communities, we handshake across the aisle. Respect and honor.

The Spiderman principle: with great power comes great responsibility. For family. The planet. Community. For people we think are not like us. We are all human, so how not like us is anyone?

In an ideal country, we participate in the global economy. We work on climate change; we prepare for pandemics. We work as global people. We lead out of compassion, not fear. We build with hard work; we work together.

We don’t lie about history. We don’t continue to drive a wedge between rich and poor. We work for a strong economy that gives opportunities for growth. We open doors to education.

But we have a long way to go. In the 1950’s, CEOs made 20 times more than the average worker.

In 2024, the average Uber driver made $19/hour or nearly $40,000 yearly. The CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi, made $24,248,209. He is making 600 times what his employees make. Not 20 times. Not even 100 times. But 600 times.

In 2028, if the Fourth Turning moves with strength, it will be because we will see each other. Making 600 times more than your employees means you don’t see them as people anymore. They exist to make you richer.

I want to see what this country will become. Can we overcome having government and taxes existing for the billionaires and by the billionaires? Can we be for the people and by the people?

I’m not giving up.

It’s painful now, but the best of us are interested in all the ways that we are magical, unique, and share humanity. That’s why I believe that travel is so great. You meet people who are different than you, who think differently.

The first time you realize there are people in the world that eat with sticks, you think, “Wow, all this time, I’ve been stuck with these metal implements? I could have been eating with those cool sticks!”

The first time you go to a fancy person’s house, you think, “You have got to be kidding! How much silverware are you putting on the table?”

I have to say, that’s what I love about Red Hen’s current board. A group of people curious about books, stories, how the world works, and how to make it better.

That’s what makes life so amazing. Learning about the forks and sticks and the napkins folded like flowers, and the platypus, and the mangrove swamps, white dolphins, and the rings around Saturn, and all those wild stories waiting to be written down and read.

Yes, they are not like us. We could learn from them. They could learn from us. We could all sit around the campfire and share food and listen to music and tell stories like we did at the beginning of the world. We are not at war.

Here, when I say “us and “them,” of course, it depends on the “us and “them.” There are some “us and them” that are at war in this country, as well as others. But we don’t all have to be. We could listen.

As for the future, scientists are going to bring back the wooly mammoth. I can’t wait to see that.

At the end of the Fourth Turning, let us create peace, led by the next generation toward cooperation and compassion. I build community. I lean into joy. I lead toward joy. I make joy and love happen.