We Americans seem to have a knack for arguing issues that really do not matter in the large scheme of things. We debate the mundane and cosmetic while ignoring the really important matters.

One of the best examples in bygone days was the silly battles in Congress 18 years ago about calling French fries freedom fries in the cafeteria in Washington D. C. Mercifully, the debate was retired to the dust bin of history and these days is essentially forgotten.

The French refused to join us in our foolish foray into Iraq, so we retaliated with freedom fries. Apparently our comeback didn’t ruffle their feathers, and France did not lose any of its citizens to a useless and pointless military adventure.

Fast forward to today and we’re still getting bogged down in debates over cosmetic issues.

Just about everybody is aware of the controversy over Aunt Jemima, the longtime pancake syrup that featured the black woman, inspired by a real person who make a lot of money from branding.

The pancake maker’s corporate parent, Quaker, decided that in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement, it’s no longer a good marketing tool to feature a motherly black woman.

Meanwhile, longtime black depictions such as Uncle Ben’s rice and Cream of Wheat hot cereal, have followed suit. Uncle Ben’s might be too close to concepts such as Uncle Tom, and Cream of Wheat supposedly promotes the idea of “the servant Negro” from long ago.

The one development I find saddest, however, is the news that the old Warner Brothers cartoon depictions of Elmer Fudd and Yosemite brandishing firearms will be removed. As one observer put it, this is the only example of the gun control lobby succeeding in removing someone’s rifle or six-shooter. Neither are real people.

So these cultural battles seems to have been moved to the front of the line of very serious problems we are facing as a nation.

I don’t mean to play down our awful history of circulating demeaning images of people of color. Just look at the example in this column. It’s even worse than getting gussied up in blackface to do a Showboat presentation, something of which I was guilty.

My issue is that we continue to ignore substantive debate and exploration of a meaningful dialogue, sacrificing it at the altar of pop culture. I submit this nation, with all of its claims of being the land of the free, the beacon on the hill, has a troubled history of denying rights to too many of its citizens.

I told members of the Tea Party in the 72^nd State Representative District in 2012 that the Founding Fathers didn’t just magically get together and create this wonderful bastion of freedom.

I told them, at my peril, that the delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention agreed to adopt the first 10 amendments, the Bill of Rights, which then applied only to free, white, male landowners ages 21 and older. They even insisted that each person of color was regarded as only three-fifths of a human being.

It was only because of grass-root peoples’ movements that the United States evolved into what we are so proud of today. I speak of the anti-slavery and women’s suffrage campaigns. And most recently we’ve seen the long overdue equality for LGBTQ persons.

The real progress made in this country was not the result of lawmakers, not was it the result of seemingly innocuous squabbles over symbols and cartoon characters.

This country is in serious trouble because of it has avoided substantive debates over climate change, racism, bullying, wealth inequality and “the invisible enemy” that is COVID-19.

And we’re not doing a damn thing about it.