I turn to my right and the fascists will ask, “How can you say you love this country with all of your irritations and all of the issues you constantly point out and complain about?”
While on my left another will cynically ask in disgust, “What’s to love about this ‘great’ nation with all of its problems and constant unrest?”
It’s BECAUSE I love my country that I can acknowledge there is an abundance of problems and issues we need to make right. It’s BECAUSE I love my country that I can look at it and acknowledge its flaws in hopes to fix them, change them, grow from them, heal them to come to something new and so much more improved. I wouldn’t be fighting so damn hard to find, face, and fix those issues if I didn’t love my country.
It’s BECAUSE I love my country that I refuse to let it be run by the few that care more for the green lining of their pockets than for its people.
It’s BECAUSE I love my country that I refuse to let the few in power that are a strain on it and its democracy, and their deplorable followers that have been emboldened to crawl out from their dwellings of hate, be a representation of it.
With years of oppression and unjust systems and policies in place with little to no progress while too many die without reason, how can one memorialize that which binds them and kills them? I understand it wholly.
I not only see you but empathize with you and your pain, your rage, and unrest. Yes, there is no doubt, it is a nation with flaws, scars, and deep-rooted issues that need healing, improving, and radical, nerve-shocking to the core changing. Know that there are many of us who are fighting today’s revolution with you and for you. Resisting along with you. Resisting for liberation. Resisting for equity. Resisting for identity. Resisting for our Earth. Resisting for access. Resisting for dreams. Resisting for freedom from violence. Resisting for justice.
Like any other day, I celebrate and love my country today, on its national holiday, like the radical act of defiance and rebellion that was the nation’s independence — by fighting to improve her every day.