For Americans Who Don't Like America
I used to think I loved America but I didn’t.
It turns out, I loved the myth of America.
Growing up, I bought into its songs and its anthems and its stirring stories of liberty and opportunity, which I guess was understandable.
For a suburban, cisgender, heterosexual male who identified as Christian, these myths were more true for me than most. They were all I'd ever known. That version of America had always been available to me, even if it was out of reach for many people.
But the more I had my eyes opened by travel and experience and curiosity and education, the more I saw the cracks in the glistening, whitewashed facade and into the putrid decay underneath. It is a sickness that now seems more pervasive and profound than ever. As bad as I've come to realize it has always been, in many ways it feels far worse now.
Lately, I'm realizing that not only do I not love this nation but I really don't like it very much, either: not the one we have been and certainly not the one I see us becoming now that we have rejected decency and elected inhumanity.
I don't like the fierce denial of Science and data.
I don’t like the rejection of education and expertise.
I don’t like rising hostility toward the different.
I don't like a cruel white Christian Church devoid of a compassionate Jesus of color.
I don't like the unrepentant brutality of our leaders.
I don't like a political party fully beholden to a traitorous monster.
I don't like the racists emboldened to bully store clerks and harass black teenagers.
I don't like seeing people I love devoured by baseless conspiracy and nonsensical propaganda.
I don't like realizing how many people I know harbor hatred.
I don’t like that we elected a rapist and felon.
I don't like so much of this place that it grieves my heart.
My adversaries tell me to just “just get out if I don’t like it,” and on many days I completely agree with them. I confess to regularly daydreaming about leaving it all behind, about beginning again somewhere else: about escaping the coming flood of fascism that feels unstoppable, avoiding my increasingly unrecognizable neighbors, and cutting off my unhinged family members.
Yet, I know even having the option to do such things is a symptom of my privilege and a luxury many cannot afford; people who will remain here regardless of what happens because their forebears had stayed—and because not staying isn’t something their brains have time to entertain.
And so, even though I really don't like America, I'm trying to stay in America, too.
I'm trying to stay because my children and so many other people's children deserve to inherit something less like what this place is, and more like the place it could be: the nation the songs declare we are but have not yet been.
I'm trying to stay to show people that Christianity is not what they've been told it is by this MAGA, Bible Belt bastardization with a bloodthirsty, gun-toting, white Republican Jesus with no love for his neighbors.
I'm trying to stay to stand up to the grocery store bullies and the mosque door vandals and the social media terrorists and the truck flag bigots, to let them know that they don't have the run of the house just because they have had a kindred spirit in the White House or steadfast advocates in the highest levels of Congress or surrogates on the Supreme Court.
I'm trying to stay to be a builder of the country I dream of living in, the one whose glory I have seen brief flashes of; the one that has always been made better by good people who decided to be loud in the face of a really powerful violence that seemed to be winning.
I'm trying to stay here and get my hands dirty, instead of watching from a safe distance and praying someone does something to keep it all from hitting the fan, because that's how we ended up here.
Most of all I'm trying to stay because I've done my time here and contributed my gifts and earned my scars—and I'm not about to let anyone threaten me or push me or shout me out of here.
It’s getting bad here and yes, I do fully believe it's all going to get worse before it gets better, but I'm staying so that hopefully the worse isn't quite as bad and so the better arrives a little bit sooner.
If things continue to devolve and our systems further fail and fascism gets a greater foothold, I may decide that remaining here is impossible for my family’s safety and future.
But for now, I'm going to roll up my sleeves, steady myself, double my resolve, and work tirelessly alongside tens of millions of others here, who don't like America either but who care deeply about the disparate people who deserve a much better version of it.
I love the liberty and equality and diversity this nation was supposed to aspire to, and we still have a shot at being home to these things even if the odds are not as good as they may have been a few short weeks ago.
For now, that is enough reason to stay.
I think a great many of us feel this way, and have felt this way for a very long time, as the wallpaper has been peeling off the facade for quite awhile. That we straight white people are coming around to a perspective more like that of people of color and other disadvantaged groups is a beacon of hope, albeit a damn uncomfortable one. The day after our duly elected felon took office, someone forwarded me a poem, which I posted but unfortunately failed to keep on file. Written by a woman of color it reminded us that "When you woke today you woke to a country exactly the same as it was before. Exactly the same." It went on to say that people like her have survived, and will continue to survive, despite this. It has always amazed me that people of color, and especially women of color, continue to serve their fellow citizens, love each other, and resist the impulse to blow their oppressors away. We have a lot to learn about how to do this.
Thank you John. This is exactly what I needed to read right now. I always have loved the ideal of America. I've also always loved leaving home for a while and usually hated coming back.
Now, at seventy, I'm blessed to be surrounded by family I share love with. Though I have the means to leave, there's nothing that would take me away from them but death.
I hate what my America has become but I still believe that the ideal lives on. We may not see the greatness restored but our grandchildren depend on us working for this.