There are numerous changes to the freedoms we have enjoyed as Americans. From the Supreme Court’s recent decision about abortion to other rulings affecting gun control, legislation is mutable in our society. Inflation is high, factory farms still prey on helpless animals, voting rights are in question, crime is up, LGBTQ+ liberties waver, race relations are tense, and gender issues have hit critical mass. This July Fourth, there will be celebrations all over the country. Families will file into their cars to watch fireworks displays. Loved ones will gather for cookouts and picnics, but is this the right way to observe our nation’s birthday? In this time of tumult, should we party or protest? 

In 2020, the United States faced a reckoning with race following the brutal murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and countless other people of color whose lives ended too soon. Sentiments on social media that year were bleak in terms of observing Independence Day. Many Black Americans lamented over feeling marginalized by public policies and an overall racist climate in the country. Other people of various backgrounds took issue with celebrating Independence Day or waving an American flag because those things felt synonymous with values they no longer understood. The remainder described themselves as “patriots” and were undeterred by the sociopolitical climate.

Kristen Syrett, associate professor of linguistics at Rutgers University/New Brunswick, told CNN in 2021: “If I say someone is a true patriot, I have a clear idea of what that means and what it means to not be a patriot. This is a word that is really conditioned by what our set of values is and what we think we’re fighting for.” 

If what Syrett says is true, then patriotism, as a construct, has some explaining to do. This country may have been founded on the ideals of white men, but it was built with the blood, sweat, and tears of people of color on land stolen from Indigenous nations. Therefore, patriotism, as it’s been bandied about decade after decade, feels like a continued justification for disrupting democracy, race-baiting, and flouting other civilities that could otherwise bring us together. This year, millions of Americans still feel “hoodwinked, bamboozled, led astray, and run amok,” and Independence Day reinforces that disenfranchisement for them. However, they are no less American for harboring those feelings than zealots enrobing themselves in Confederate flags and cruising around town in pick-up trucks, shouting, “USA! USA!” 

Patriotism should not belong to scared white people rioting against equality, hate-spewing trolls in the comments section of social media apps, or psychopaths with inferiority complexes brandishing guns. It must become a word that, when uttered, doesn’t send one’s thoughts to visions of white nationalists or the malefactors from the Capitol insurrection but speaks for all of us without malice and without prejudice.

Source: CNN, Politico