For the first time in a long time, I am proud of my country.
I’ve always been proud to be an American and know how lucky I am to live in this country. But despite my national pride, I have been heartbroken by the things my country has done in the world and to its people.
For the past decade I have watched as my country has squandered much-needed goodwill from the rest of the world and quashed the will of many of its citizens. I’ve watched the nightly news telling me how horrible things are in this country without any real answers as to how we can make them better. I disrobe and reveal the contents of my pockets and luggage while in line at the airport all for the theatrical illusion of security. I read about illegal wiretaps being made legal because the government says they are imperative to our national health. I’ve seen the will of the people ignored and manipulated by tactics of fear and exploitation of the ideals of our citizens. I’ve seen civil liberties being delicately and strategically trampled on while officials tell us it’s for our own good. I’ve seen white and been told that I’m looking at black and it has slowly ground my pride down to an unrecognizable dull nub.
For a long time I’ve known in my heart that some of the things going on in the world are horrible and unfair and just plain wrong, but every day I feel more and more like I have less and less power to change them.
Today when I woke up, I felt a little different. I’m proud of you America. I’m proud of you for finally coming together and collectively saying “NO” to the road our country has been headed down for the past 8 years. For saying “YES” to the ideals that made this country great and standing up for them. For saying “NO” to the hierarchy of power that has turned our country into the debt-ridden, fear-mongering shadow of what it could be. For saying “YES” to choosing a different path and mustering up the will to believe that things can change.
We have elected a man to office who certainly has a lot of work to do to earn the trust that we have given him, but he was able to stand up and show us that we, the people, do not have to bow to ignorance and apathy anymore. Though there is still a lot of divisions within our country, this man cut through a lot of them and revealed to us that there is still hope in this world and there are people willing to fight for it.
I feel like I grew up a little today, and I feel like America did to. The clenched fist that has gripped our country for so long is losing its strength, and my generation has finally stood up and said that it does not want what this country has become, but rather to take it in a new direction of hope and prosperity. I know we want to be a country of maturity and morals and fairness, but we haven’t been shown that that is a possibility for a long time. We don’t have to be afraid that someone who is smarter than us is running the country. We don’t have to be afraid of change.
I’ve felt like an outsider for a long time. Like there aren’t a lot of other people who feel the same things I do about the world. Like my vision of the world has been the result of an internal malady. I don’t feel like that today.
There are a lot of things in this country -- and in the world -- that need to change. Today, I don’t feel like the enormity of those problems is something that is impossible to remedy. I feel good. I feel rejuvenated. I know there is a lot of work to be done, and for once, I’m not afraid of it.
