spirit of 76
i once believed in liberty and justice for all. that's all gone now
It’s the 4th of July, 1976 and we’re celebrating the bicentennial. We’ve been celebrating basically all year but this day is special. You can feel it. There are tall ships in the harbor and parades all over. Everyone is wearing red, white, and blue. Almost every house has a flag waving outside. My neighbor has her Volkswagen adorned with flags and she’s wearing an outfit that can best be described as a stars and stripes ball gown. She gleefully waves to me as I’m putting small American flags in my front lawn. “Happy bicentennial!” I wave back. I’m still young enough to get caught up in the excitement and I am wearing a bicentennial flavored shirt from Sears with my bell bottom jeans. I’m 14 years old and I still believe in liberty and justice for all.
We’re having a huge part at my grandparents’ house. There will be kegs and food and fireworks. It feels like every house on the block is gearing up for a party. We’re celebrating America and 200 years of freedom. We’re engaging in blatant jingoism. We’re reveling in what a great country this is, how we all have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I would start high school in the fall and the lens through which I viewed America would change drastically in the subsequent years, but for now I am proud to be an American, because I was taught that America was a country to be proud of. It’s a feel-good time. Remember those?
Here we are in 2022, getting ready to celebrate the 4th, and I am so far removed from that naive 14 year old who believed in everything the Pledge of Allegiance had to offer. Independence Day celebrations have become less and less meaningful for me over time. Today I’m thinking about that bicentennial celebration, about the feel-good aura, and the pride I felt. That pride no longer exists.
My dismay and anger toward this country is not something that was conjured up overnight. It’s been a gradual decline that reached a fever pitch in the last six years or so and is now consuming me to the point of despair. If we were to go around the table at our 4th of July barbecue and say what we love about this country, I’d be hard pressed to come up with something. I no longer have that blind love for America. I’m not that kid anymore. I don’t believe this is the land of liberty and justice for all. I don’t believe we still have that right to pursuit of happiness, because there are caveats on that right now; it’s not for everyone. America and its “rights” is for straight white men who love guns and hate anyone not like them. If you are queer or trans or a person of color or a young woman seeking control of her own body, you are fucked.
It’s so many things. It’s how racists and misogynists and homophobes have been emboldened, how they are all saying the quiet part out loud. It’s the slow dismantling of every right we had. It’s people storming the Capitol, egged on by the very people who are supposed to represent us. I don’t want to turn this into a litany of every problem I have with America because you already know. You’re probably there, too.
It’s devastating to feel such sorrow for your country. I’m so often angry at what’s happening here, that we’ve descended into utter chaos, that we have lost our way. I want to find things to feel good about. I want to celebrate. I want to be able to point to an American flag - not the kind with the thin blue line on it - and say, that’s my country and I’m proud. But I can’t do that now. There’s too much to be mad about. Every single day brings another news item that infuriates me at the same time it saddens me. I think about that 14 year old who still felt something special when she sang “America, the Beautiful,” who felt hopeful and optimistic that the future spread out before her would be one replete with freedoms, with peace, with harmony, with care.
There’s nothing to celebrate this year. There’s nothing to be proud of. We are at a crossroads and I do not like the direction we as a country are headed in. I remember that 4th of July night in 1976, shimmying up on the roof of my grandparents’ garage to watch the fireworks. This is great, I thought. America is great. Except it really wasn’t, even then. I was just too young to realize that not everyone lived like me, safe in suburbia with a nuclear family and no real problems.
Now, our problems are deeper and more widespread, and they’ve all come to light. Nobody hides their prejudices anymore. Everything is out in the open. We’re at war with each other and the people with the worst agendas are winning. I don’t want to celebrate this. I don’t want to wave a flag or wear a stars and stripes shirt. I don’t want to hear speeches about what a great, free country America is. I wish I could get back some of that joy I felt back in 1976, even if it was a tad misplaced. I wish there was something to look forward to, that I had cause for optimism.
It’s 2022 and that 14 year old from the bicentennial year is long gone, replaced by a cynical, angry, disheartened 59 year old. I’m going to spend July 4th watching Jaws and cuddling my dog during the fireworks and thinking about that girl who thought America was beautiful.