Grieving America: A Personal Reflection on Lost Ideals

If this is what makes America “great”, then the America I loved is dead… or it never really existed.

Regular readers of my content can attest that it typically comes with a certain amount of indignation written into the words. I strongly believe, based on the assessments of experts I trust, that the actions of this administration do NOT serve US peasants; for that reason, as long as we still have the freedom of speech, you will continue to find that firecracker energy in my writing.

Not today, though. Today, I am feeling heavy. It wasn't any one particular news story, nothing happened in my personal life… I'm just… grieving. It's absolutely insane, but that's what it is.

I'm grieving my country; this gigantic, paradoxical, multifaceted, brilliant, generous, innovative, forward-thinking country I've called home since first drawing breath in 1990.

You just aren't what I thought you were, America; what always made me proud of us was our willingness to admit we were wrong, and do better. We decimated the indigenous civilizations en masse, but we respect their sovereignty now! We enslaved millions of Africans, but their descendants live equally as Americans now! We did Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but now we're the world leader in defense! We're Americans, and we always strive to do better than we did before. It's in our nature!

What. A. Crock. Of. SHIT.

Like a sculpture in a block of marble, my belief in a promising, inspiring America has been chipped away by the sharp edges and blunt forces of lived experience:

• Graduating high school a semester early… in December of 2008, right into the recession.

• My credit score making the ultimate decision in my higher education path.. instead of the doctorate I dreamt of, I started work after my bachelor.

• Meeting an illegal immigrant at a restaurant I worked at in college, and finding out he had worked there for 5 years without a raise, at a dollar below minimum wage… and he paid taxes the whole time.

• My ECON 101 professor telling the whole class back in 2010 that none of us would ever see a dime of Social Security.

• Finding out a classroom of kids was massacred and we did nothing about it. And then again. And then again.

• Seeing Brock Turner get a lenient sentence on his clearly-defined rape with eyewitness testimony… I didn't even bother reporting my rape, about a year later.

• My boss pulling me into his office to let me know that if I was gonna make myself coffee in the morning, I should really start coming in 5 minutes earlier, because I need to be working at 8am.

• Seeing my twenties come and go, having never been able to afford a place of my own (despite steady salary rises). Learning the problem was widespread, and my generation is largely postponing their hopes and dreams.

• Philando Castile. Eric Garner. Ahmaud Arbery. Sandra Bland. Breonna Taylor. Jacob Blake. Sonya Massey. Freddie Gray… George Floyd got a lot more people involved, but Philando is when I started following. Philando is the first one that got to me. I saw it with my own eyes on Facebook. His 4 year old daughter was in the car when it happened.

• I’ve watched an electric company burn an entire town to the ground and kill 80-some people, but still be allowed to be a company.

• I've watched a town in Michigan fail to deliver clean water to its residents for the better part of a decade.

• After years of being told (particularly by conservatives) that you shouldn't have kids if you can't afford it, lawmakers are concerned that millennials like me didn't have children.

• Banks got bailed out with no significant penalties but continue to collect like $5 billion a year in overdraft fees from the folks who struggle the most.

• Knowing at least 5 members of the Forbes 400 amass their fortunes from the some of the country's largest employers of food stamp recipients.

To put it mildly, my belief in “America the Great” was already crumbling, let's just say that.

This moment is… different. Even for someone who likes to think she is pretty well informed, I find myself grieving the country I thought I lived in.

I thought we were less baldly racist. I thought we were smarter. I thought we aspired to be equal. I thought we understood that none of this works without compromise. I thought we'd recognize a threat to democracy when we saw one. I thought the Democrats, after years of fear-mongering about the potential fall of Democracy, would have made a plan in advance of it happening. I thought We The People didn't like greedy, lying, self-interested billionaires.

I am stunned by the cruelty of it all, the sheer disregard for the lives they effect. More stunning still is the lack of outcry… from Republicans, from the markets, from his own base. This era of history has pulled us down to a darker standard of rhetoric, and it feels like the prolonged exposure has made us all a little meaner.

I'm not sure if I know my country at all. That deserves grieving.

As I type this, though, I know one thing with absolute certainty: I am not alone. The reason I know that is because I consume the news at a level unrealistic for most people, and the testimonies are plenty. I also have the world's best roommates, and a kick-ass dog.

I typed that last paragraph to say this: if you are still here, YOU, reading this right now, it's so fucking important that you know…

YOU ARE NOT ALONE.

Yes, the news is insane right now. Yes, it is weird that life just keeps going on like normal. No, you are not worrying too much, it is justified. You are not the only one feeling this way, and if it doesn't make you feel any better, I hope it at least reminds you that you're not alone.

If this is what makes America “great”, then the America I loved is dead… or it never really existed.

Whichever it is, that deserves a moment of grief.