I’m a proud American. Most days.
After all, this is the country of John Steinbeck and Bob Dylan, of Susan B. Anthony and Malcolm X, of Coca-Cola and the 1992 Dream Team. We invented the light bulb. We launched ourselves to the moon. We fought for voting rights and marriage equality. I can’t help but love this place and all the people who have called it home for the last two and a half centuries.
Yet I’m honest enough to admit that all too often, our great American experiment has been one monumental shit show. Built on the land of an oppressed people. Powered by the labor of a stolen workforce. Designed to advantage a select few. We’re a nation that has continually chosen violence and greed and power over virtue and justice and peace.
Herein lies the tragic irony that any clear-eyed patriot must face: America is a nation whose identity has been forged by constant and blatant contradiction. The country that gave us Little League baseball and PBS Kids is the same one that looks the other way when children get shot in their third-grade classrooms.
On this milestone birthday, no amount of fireworks can drown out the dissonance of our complex history. America is great. And heroic. And beautiful. But even as we celebrate our most noble ideals, perhaps we can also grieve for the many ways in which it is selfish. And corrupt. And still a long way from where it should be after 250 years.
Drew Thomas Humphrey 