I was listening to KFOG as I drove in to work the day after the election. They were reading letters from listeners. A man who is half Mexican, half German, a lawyer by trade, wrote of his pride at the results of the presidential race. He recounted a childhood memory of traveling with his family in Arizona, and the fierce angry man who pointed at a sign of a restaurant they attempted to enter. No Mexicans Allowed.
Another listener wrote, in part, to lament the reference to being proudest of America at this moment or that moment, insisting that if one doesn't love the country, one should leave.
I think she is forgetting that there is a difference between being proud of one's country, and loving one's country.
Americans have always, by and large, loved the US of A. Those of us whose ancestry goes back 5+ generations, those of us who are brand spanking new. We love our country. We will always be proud to be Americans.
But some of us have not always been proud of America. Some of us have experienced our mother land calling us to great sacrifice, but treating us worse than vomit from a dog. And some of us have inherited the pain, expectations and outlook that experience ingrains into a person or a people.
When someone says that they're proud due to this moment or that moment, they are speaking of the country moving closer to what it claims to be. A place where all are created equal. A place where we can honestly say – and demonstrate – that the inalienable rights of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness are available to everyone.
It's sort of like watching a child raise himself to his feet for the first time. You did not love the child less when he was crawling. Your love for him did not change at all. But you are so very proud of the moment when he pulls himself up to stand.
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