I’ve always called myself a patriot, but very few folks who’ve asked me about that understood the weight of the statement.
I love my country. I will never forget the sins it had committed in its time, nor will I forgive those who perpetuate the continuance of those sins.
When I’ve said I was a patriot, I was holding myself to an ideal for my nation that it has never reached and, if my fellow countrymen don’t accept certain notions, it never will. That is the difference between being a patriot and being a nationalist.
A nationalist believes wholeheartedly in their country, be it their place of birth or their adopted home. They accept only the window dressing of a nation’s achievements, and the United States has some of the most gorgeous window dressings. After all, we rebelled against our patron country, an Empire that spanned the globe and won. We managed to expand our territories against hostiles and won. We saw two World Wars, got involved, and ensured the victory of the first and outright won the second. We’ve claimed to be the leading nation in self-determination and freedom. It’s what we’re all taught.
Except then we look at our history, and see the redness splattered across the pages.
A patriot looks at their home and knows that there is work to do before it can meet the standards it should be held to. We perpetuated and enriched a slave trade that treated entire peoples as animals, and because of that, black folks are still seen as animals by many in this country when they are, in fact, just people. We massacred whole tribes of Indigenous Americans and, almost as an aside, allowed them to keep their cultures in painfully small and unmanageable stretches of land. We told people that they would be welcome within our borders until we realized the people were Chinese, Irish, Jews, or Mexicans. We decided that a country originally founded to be a haven of the religiously persecuted should persecute others because of our religion.
I am a patriot. While I celebrate today’s history, I remember our failings.
To make things ever more poignant for me personally: on this day, the day the nation is supposed to be celebrating its independence, I am told that ‘I’m what’s wrong with this country’ by people with Confederate flags flying over their homes or on decals fixed to their vehicles. People who believe a symbol of traitors is a sign of personal moral high-ground will look down on me for saying that we, as a country, have a lot to make up for.
But I do believe we have a lot to make up for, and that list keeps growing as we look down upon our fellows of the LGBTQ+ community. The Land of the Free will never be so until all of our people, from Indigenous to Trans, are Free. The Home of the Brave will always have an unsound foundation until the unsung heroes of civil rights are acknowledged and remembered.
We can make it happen, though. We can be the country I believe in. Yes, it will take work and humility. Yes, it would mean those prideful zealots will have to remove their stars-and-stripes blindfolds and look upon the devastation wrought over the centuries. We have to move away from being a country of nationalists to a nation of patriots.
Will this happen? I can only hope and work towards it. I don’t know if it’ll happen in my lifetime, but I have faith that will happen. I may never see it happen, but the country I love will one day be a reality. Within those answers are the driving forces behind every real, true patriot.
Hope. Faith. Love.
One day, folks, we’ll make this place a country to be proud of. It’ll take some work, though. Let’s be about it.
Stay safe out there, readers.
-JB Swift
Swift's Corner 