America, the land of the free, the home of the brave… but what does that mean exactly? Maybe, we all bleed red white and blue? No. We all live under the same freedoms, making us equal? Not quite. So what is it that unites the American people?
We are seeing every day how divided and misguided the U.S. appears to be. No matter your political affiliation, gender identity, sexual orientation, race or ethnicity, it is undeniable that the United States is, to say the least, divided.
So let us backtrack; what brought the founding fathers together when creating the place so many people call home? Wigs, quills, and blue coats? What brought the British, Dutch, and French colonists together with the Native Americans? Trade, smallpox, and genocide? What brought slaves together with their slave masters? Whips, rape, and murder? I urge you to ask yourself, what does it mean to you, to be American? Is it simply people who belong, live, and work in America?
The American people experience social segregation in schools, discrimination in the workplace, misogyny at the country club, yet we still call this country the “United States of America.” How can its citizens call themselves American, and united, when the two words seem utterly meaningless? It is hard to fathom, that being an American means more than saying the “Pledge Of Allegiance” and singing the National Anthem to a piece of cloth, like we are told to do.
Many things that the populace agrees on as “American culture” tend to be “White culture”(which, arguably, does not exist but that is for another article). Not everyone who lives within the U.S. boundaries loves to experience Super Bowl Sunday, Bud Light, or Bob Dylan, but many think of these things as simply, American. Many may say these are the core things that unite the American people, but the reality is they do not unite all of us. The 318.9 million people who live in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave, may not be so united.
The Colonists, Native Americans, slaves, and slave masters all came from different cultural backgrounds, to add to the melting pot that is America. This is not to be overlooked, the diversity that is held in this nation is something that may actually unite them one day. Until then, the term American will continue to be used to describe individuals, separate from the unit as a whole, because, in reality, there is not one thing all 318.9 million people have in common. Besides, our humanity.
This may come as a shock, but what if being an American means nothing at all?
