recognizing my America
/To hear Brandi read “Recognizing My America,” click here: https://youtu.be/IfafK5C1a4Y
This week Americans celebrate Independence Day, a holiday that cheers freedom and demonstrates patriotism, often with jorts, fireworks and excessive day drinking. Just as often, we mark the holiday with neighborhood bike parades, BBQ and watermelon. Thinking about the various ways we spend our fourths of July leads me to also wonder what exactly it is that we are celebrating. Put another way, what is America, and who gets to decide?
Are we Lee Greenwood’s version? Proud, certain we are free and blessed, and familiar with the agricultural highlights of each state? Is Charlie Daniel’s vision of a national kumbaya correct? Will we “all stick together, you can take that to the bank. That’s the cowboys and the hippies, the rebels and the yanks?” Does Donald Glover get to decide? In “This is America” he reveals a country alive with movement and soul, but also littered with guns, violence, apathy and fear. Maybe Toby Keith gets it right, describing us as an international bar bouncer: “You’ll be sorry you messed with the U. S. of A; we’ll put a boot in your ass, it’s the American way.” Do veterans who think we honor the whole America in the National Anthem by standing or kneeling get to decide what America is? On a national holiday that celebrates our origin story, it is worth thinking about who we think we are.
For many Americans, , America does represent freedom and independence. We are the magical land where people prove their worth through their work, where everyone gets a fair shot. God loves to bless us because we are His favorites (outside of Israel, of course). Real Americans have no need to protest anything, because we are great and protesters are violent whiners. I like this idea of America, and sometimes wish I could believe it. I have learned, however, that in order to believe this is THE version of America, I have to erase more history than I remember. I have to erase the experiences of many friends. In order to believe, I have to ignore the fact that our country was founded to guarantee the freedom and equality of white men, and white men alone. I have to ignore that fact that we legally and intentionally oppressed, killed and stole from Native and Black peoples. I have to ignore the single mom in Appalachia who works incredibly hard but can’t establish her worth or sustainability to the world around her. I have to ignore the Black man who works long hours even though he is treated with suspicion and disdain when his paycheck fails to give his family breathing room.
I recognize these ideas can seem inflammatory, but I don’t write them to provoke. Instead, I am suggesting that we might best celebrate Independence Day by recognizing our entire history. We are both a country that loves our work ethic and a country that refuses to reward the hard work of some parts of our population. We are both a country that believes in equality and justice for all and one that legislates injustice and inequality. We believe in democracy and fair shots, while protecting a caste system based on race and education. We are the home of the brave and yet we have punished displays of bravery in brown or female bodies. We cherish our religious freedom but we ban people on the basis of their religion.
Calling these assertions unpatriotic doesn’t make them untrue.
People who study American culture talk about our longstanding tradition of imagining American spaces really as white spaces. In our dominant cultural imagination, hard workers look like white workers. The American heartland looks like quilts sewn and fields plowed and pies baked by white hands. I know the mention of race is off-putting for some, but this is because many Americans have the privilege of not thinking about the cultural and historical racism that links color with suspicion. If we could recognize our passive linking of “real Americans” with “white Americans” then we can embrace our country’s entire story on this historical holiday.
This Independence Day, could we honor our nation’s legacy by thinking independently? Could we reject the narrative that the only way to be patriotic is to love Lee Greenwood and ignore Donald Glover? Could we listen to those who honor our flag by kneeling or standing? On July 4th, 1776, the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence. A group of brave white men in tights and wigs wrote an epic letter protesting the oppressive injustice of a group of powerful privileged men who refused to consider their perspective or value. The origin story of America is one of protest. Knowing this, it is hard to now accept the idea that those who protest are unpatriotic. Un-American.
Writing this gives me pause, because I know the dangers of living in the middle space, where American failures and triumphs are remembered. I know the mention of white supremacy feels like an attack on America, but I am even more afraid for all us if we continue to act as if America only belongs to a certain type of person. The thing that we celebrate on July 4th is taking power from a few and sharing that power with many. While we have yet to get this right, we come closer to living up to the American democratic ideal when we make room for all kinds of voices to share their experiences of America. This begins by remembering our whole history.
When our daughter was three she had a funny speech pattern of addressing people with a possessive pronoun. She called her favorite neighbor “my Isabelle.” She said, “I want to swim with my Emmett” or “I go play with my Marion.” Remembering this makes me think about what it means to claim a person. She was not trying to own them with her “my,” she was asserting her devotion to them. She was relationally bound by love and delight to these people.
As we celebrate Independence Day, to whom are we relationally bound?
Who is worthy of our delight and love, and who do we naturally dismiss or avoid? We all have these kinds of biases. They can be confessed and examined, transforming them as markers in our journeys as we expand our us and build better communities. These biases become dangerous though when we trust them as good and right, using them to demean the value of another human being who shares our air and zip code and country.
In an age where I hear angry voices claim, “He’s not my President,” or “They aren’t welcome in my America,” I want to celebrate the 4th of July by claiming my America. Our America, which has been exclusive and inclusive, brave and cowardly, bullying and welcoming, oppressing and dignifying. Let’s celebrate the whole America, and every person who helped build, cultivate and shape it. Every race, culture and gender who contributed to the country we call ours. It took a diverse village to build us into who we are, and we lose very little when we acknowledge that fact. We lose our country when we pretend like it is and always has been the result and promise of one race alone. As we celebrate, let’s reflect on who we’ve been, who we are, and what each of us might help America become.
