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I had heard so much negative talk about our generation, that we're slackers and young fogies, that I knew wasn't true of the people I know.

Eric Liu

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Eric Liu
Age: 56
Born: 1968
Born: January 1
Journalist
Writer
Poughkeepsie
New York
Knew
Heard
Talk
Slackers
True
Slacker
Young
Generation
Much
Negative
People
Generations
Wasn

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We all want merit to mean something, and we all may be tempted to reduce that meaning to something measurable and concrete like an SAT score. The reality, though, is that who deserves entry into an institution depends on what the institution exists to do.
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Conservatives forget that citizenship is more than a thing to withhold from immigrants. Progressives forget it's more than a set of rights.
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The nativism behind the push to repeal or amend the Fourteenth is ugly and obvious.
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Much of our national debate proceeds as if China and America were locked in a zero-sum game in which one's loss is precisely the other's gain.
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After watching my first World Series in 1977, I wanted to be Reggie Jackson. I bought a big Reggie poster. I ate Reggie candy bars. I entered a phase during which I insisted on having the same style of glasses Reggie had: gold wire frames with the double bar across.
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In the end no segregationist scheme has withstood the force of a simple idea: equality under law.
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Identity in America is complicated but it's also simple: it's about whom you identify with and who identifies with you.
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True patriots believe that freedom from responsibility is selfishness, freedom from sacrifice is cowardice, freedom from tolerance is prejudice, freedom from stewardship is exploitation, and freedom from compassion is cruelty.
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We're all better off...when we're all better off.
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From the right, you get demagogues shouting about brown-skinned anchor babies and clamoring to deport the undocumented. From the left, you get advocacy for the oppressed but otherwise, when it comes to national civic identity, mainly silence.
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The strongest streak in the American character is a fierce pragmatism that mistrust blind ideology of every stripe and insists on finding what really works.
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Imagine filling a college with the first 1,000 students to get perfect SATs. Whatever the racial composition of that class would be, the notion seems absurd because we know that college in America is supposed to be about creating citizens and leaders in a diverse nation.
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True patriots believe that we should measure a citizen's worth by contribution to country and community, not by wealth or power-that those whom America has benefited most should contribute in proportion to their good fortune-and that serving others should be esteemed more highly than serving self.
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If whiteness were of no particular advantage, then having a fuller color wheel of skin tones would be purely a matter of celebration. But whiteness - just a drop of it - does still carry privilege. You learn that very young in America.
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Many smart folks seem to think that if you just get your metaphors and messages right, you'll win. That if you start describing what you favor as a 'moral value' - 'affordable health care is a moral value' etc., - then you'll appeal to red-state voters.
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In the end, a new Americanization movement can't just be about listing our privileges and immunities, which we catalog in our laws. It also has to be about reinforcing our duties, which we convey in our habits.
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My grandfather was a general in the Nationalist Chinese Air Force during World War II, and I grew up hearing the pilot stories and seeing pictures of him in uniform.
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Honest people know that the road to success and virtue always involves shared sacrifice, hard work, and gratification postponed. Telling people otherwise isn't leadership, it is pandering.
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True patriots measure themselves not by personal wealth or power but by the degree to which they contribute to the community.
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Jeremy Lin is the only Asian American in the NBA today and one of the few in any professional U.S. sport. His arrival is surely leading other talented Asian American athletes this week to contemplate a pro career.
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