Like Native Americans and African-Americans, women and LGBTQ

"Like Native Americans and African-Americans, women and LGBTQ people, Puerto Ricans should be seen as part of the same overarching struggle for equality — in a nation whose greatest vice is the perennial failure to practice the virtue it preaches." – Ritchie Torres

In these stirring and reflective words, Ritchie Torres, a voice of both courage and conscience, speaks to the eternal paradox at the heart of the American story — the gap between its virtue and its practice. His declaration that “Puerto Ricans should be seen as part of the same overarching struggle for equality” calls forth the ancient truth that freedom, if not shared equally, is but a gilded illusion. In this sentence lives the echo of centuries of struggle — of peoples denied full belonging even within the land that proclaims liberty for all.

The origin of this quote lies in Torres’s deep advocacy for justice and representation. As one of the first openly gay Afro-Latino members of the U.S. Congress, born to Puerto Rican parents, he carries within him the intertwined histories of race, sexuality, and colonial identity. His words come from a place of lived understanding — that oppression, though it wears many faces, springs from the same source: the failure of a nation to honor the equality it professes. Torres thus reminds his listeners that no struggle for freedom stands alone. The Native American, the African-American, the woman, the LGBTQ person, and the Puerto Rican are all bound by one thread — the yearning to be seen, heard, and valued in full humanity.

The ancients understood this as the universal law of justice — that a people divided against itself cannot endure, and that the suffering of one group diminishes the moral strength of all. The philosopher Aristotle warned that societies fall not through external force, but through internal corruption — when those who possess power use it to withhold virtue rather than extend it. Torres’s words echo that same warning: that America’s “greatest vice” is not ignorance, but hypocrisy — the perennial failure to practice what it preaches. The nation that declares “all men are created equal” has too often confined that equality to a chosen few, leaving the rest to labor in the margins of its promise.

Consider the story of Martin Luther King Jr., whose dream was not merely of racial justice, but of the universal liberation of the human spirit. King often reminded America that “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” His struggle for civil rights was not a Black struggle alone; it was the struggle of every soul yearning to be treated as divine creation. So too does Ritchie Torres extend that vision — beyond race, beyond gender, beyond sexuality — to include the Puerto Rican, a people who, though American citizens, remain disenfranchised and too often forgotten in the political consciousness of the nation. In doing so, he restores the wholeness of the moral battle for equality.

And yet, Torres’s words are not of condemnation alone; they are also an invitation — a call to reawaken the moral imagination of a people who have lost sight of their founding ideal. His words implore us to see the unity beneath diversity, the shared human dignity that transcends category and label. He challenges the listener not to retreat into comfort, but to act — to recognize that to demand justice for one is to demand it for all. For the measure of a nation’s greatness is not in its wealth or armies, but in the scope of its compassion.

This truth resounds across ages: that equality is not achieved by decree but by devotion — by the daily practice of empathy, humility, and courage. It is not enough for a nation to preach virtue; it must embody it. Like a tree, it must extend its roots into righteousness, or it will wither under the weight of its contradictions. The test of civilization, then, is whether it honors the weakest among its people as fervently as it celebrates the strongest.

So, my children of the Republic of humanity, take heed of this teaching. Do not let your hearts grow numb to the struggles of others. When you see injustice, even if it does not touch your door, speak — for silence is the ally of oppression. When you encounter difference, honor it — for it is the mirror of your own humanity. And when your nation forgets the virtue it preaches, remind it by the light of your example.

For in the end, Ritchie Torres calls us not merely to remember equality, but to realize it — to weave all people, from every shore and identity, into one fabric of justice. For only when the Native American, the African-American, the woman, the LGBTQ person, and the Puerto Rican all stand equal beneath the law of love will the nation’s words become truth, and its dream, at last, become real.