I saw this post in my Facebook feed, and I didn’t re-post it. It sure made me think, though. There are 22 words in that post, but it says A LOT. There are a few things that I thought right away, but as I looked at the post and re-read it, even more things came to mind. Let’s go through some of them:
- Scared to be called a racist? For saying you are proud to be an American? Maybe I’m missing something, but I haven’t seen that. They still play the song during the July 4th fireworks. (Hopefully, they won’t cost too much more, this year.) Calling other countries “shitholes,” that might be racist, but may it is just insensitive. Treating people differently based on the color of their skin, that’s racist. I don’t think being proud of the country you live in is racist, and I don’t think we have gotten to the point where other people are saying that. Of course, I could have missed something.
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Proud of what? This is the one that prompted me to start writing this post. I have found myself getting choked up while “Proud to be an American” played during the fireworks display in the past, as I am sure many others have. But as I stand here (I have a standing desk, have I written about that?) I can’t help but wonder, what am I supposed to be proud of, exactly? What did I do to bring this situation about? I was born and raised in the USA. I didn’t have anything to do with that. The only thing I have done is not move away.
I didn’t fight to make sure America continued to exist, like my grandfather did. I know he was proud of that! I’m proud that he did. You know what I am more proud of? I’m proud of the story he told me once about taking over command of his squad and how he didn’t lose any men from it once he had command. He made sure that the men he was responsible for made it back to America. For him, I know it wasn’t about pride, it was about responsibility, but it sure as hell makes me proud of him.
But, again, I’m just not sure what I’ve done to make it so I should be proud to be an American. I thought maybe I was thinking about this wrong, so I looked up the definition of proud:
proud
/proud/
adjective
- feeling deep pleasure or satisfaction as a result of one’s own achievements, qualities, or possessions or those of someone with whom one is closely associated.
- having or showing a high or excessively high opinion of oneself or one’s importance.
So, it looks like the “proud” I am talking about is definition 1a (I bolded it) and maybe what others are talking about is 1b (in italics). For me, being proud of qualities for which I have done nothing to achieve seems a lot like definition #2. I hope that isn’t the way it looks to everyone else in the world when people say they are proud to be an American, because that doesn’t seem like how I would like to be portrayed.
- Why is it in quotes? Are they really meaning it as a quote? If so, I assume they are quoting themselves, but the same person is writing the whole post, so why is only part of it in quotes. Also, if the poster is the speaker, it seems there is no need for any quotes at all, because that is not how social media posts work. We understand that a post is by the person who posted it, so we don’t need quotes. Unless, maybe they actually did say that first part out loud and then typed the rest. I guess that is a possibility. If that is the case, I hope they were in public, and not just talking to themselves.
The problem is, it isn’t clear that the poster was actually speaking the first part, so then the quotes create a completely different meaning, that a lot of people apparently don’t understand. Especially, Joey. I’m certain that “I’m proud to be an American” is not what the original poster wanted to convey. Just like Joey didn’t mean “I’m sorry,” and websites don’t mean they have a “30 day guarantee,” and nobody means to say Happy Anniversary to the “best wife ever.”
Anyway, those are my thoughts on this post. I just felt like I had to put something in writing about it, because I am trying to do that more. When I see something that makes me think, or insights a reaction, I want to try to write about it to practice making my thoughts clear. Why I decided to post to my blog, which no one reads, and not on Facebook is probably a topic for another day.
Photo by Patrick Brinksma on Unsplash