Are We the 'Fractured' States of America?

     What a checkered history I discovered at Fort Morgan on the shores of Alabama. I’m proud of some events that occurred here through the years, from soldiers protecting Americans from the British during the War of 1812, to their surveilling German U-boats during World War II.     
     But at this same fort, the U.S. government forced more than 200 enslaved African American men, women, and children to build the citadel I’m leaning against. Then this fort became the stopping point during the relocation of 3,500 Native Americans to Oklahoma. And during the Civil War, Americans fought against Americans here.           
     This outpost is a microcosm of our nation. We unite when outside forces threaten us. Yet we strip human rights from those among us and sometimes war against each other.
     No longer united, we are the “Fractured” States of America.     
     What will it take to become “United” States again?     
     Abraham Lincoln, quoting Jesus Christ, said that a house divided against itself cannot stand. Lincoln was speaking about slavery, but the principle applies to the mutant gene of racism in our national DNA. Let’s be honest, prejudice infects all of us. I’m racist whenever I stereotype someone. Whenever I consider my race or ethnicity superior to another’s. Whenever I forget we are all made in the image of God, which is the basis for true equality.     
     To root out the weed of bigotry in our country, we must first lament, then repent, then consent to God cultivating a crop of love in our souls.     
     Am I willing to lament, repent, and consent?