.png)
 |
| Hannah Wilson Class of 2017 |
The “land of the free and the home of the brave” has become the land of the silenced, oppressed, and disenfranchised, and the home of the racist, sexist, homophobic, and outright bigoted.
This is not to say that Americans are no longer free or brave, but rather that our definitions of those terms have come to further divide us along party and ideological lines.
Who are the free? Who are the brave?
Certainly, “free” has never referred to each and every citizen of the United States (see: US Constitution), and brave can no longer apply only to those in uniform. In the wake of a tumultuous presidential race, hard line conservatives have adopted potent definitions of free and brave and American, clothing racism in patriotism and claiming that the broad-based injustices faced by minority communities are, if they are acknowledged at all, issues less serious than one’s constitutional right to remaining seated during the playing of the national anthem.
Liberals, too, have come to see differently what it means to be free and brave. Despite pleas for justice and compassion by various activist groups, freedom seems to remain a commodity only available to white, wealthy, heteronormative Americans. Meanwhile, brave now characterizes anyone willing to risk life and liberty to march in a Black Lives Matter protest, visit an LGBT nightclub, or proclaim that religious freedom does not mean your Christian ideals should be allowed to govern my inalienable right to pursue happiness.
I’m afraid that American pride no longer exists as the mantle of a patriotic melting pot. We are in a new era, one complete with Donald Trump and the alt-right, a criminal justice system that doesn’t play by its own rules, an establishment that continues to deliberately disenfranchise the majority of the population, and a GOP that prides itself on being the Herbert Hoover to our perpetual modern day depression.
We have entered an unprecedented era of American arrogance.
Until a woman has served as the President of the United States of America, until police officers who murder in cold blood African American men, women, and children are held accountable for their actions, until it is a rarity for legislation to pass that legalizes discrimination against LGBT citizens, until healthcare is seen as a human right, until every American who is willing to work is guaranteed a living wage, until the stigma of being a follower of Islam or an immigrant has faded away, until freedom rings from the snow capped Rockies of Colorado, from the curvaceous slopes of California, from Stone Mountain of Georgia, from every hill and molehill in Mississippi, we cannot and we should not be wholly proud.
Hannah Wilson is a senior McConnell Scholar from Bradfordsville, Ky. majoring in political science, philosophy & women and gender studies.