It’s Complicated: American Pride and Patriotism

By: Jillian Richardson

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity. do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

One of my favorite contemporary photos! President Barack Obama greets Clark Reynolds, age 3, during a reception celebrating African American History Month in the White House, Feb. 18, 2016. Photo by Pete Souza. Source: TIME.com

These familiar words of The Preamble to our US Constitution -signed September 17, 1787- are poignantly famous to some and pretentiously infamous to others.

Whether you are American-born, an immigrant, a dual citizen, a global citizen from elsewhere, or anything in between, the meaning and application of the ideals espoused in the US Constitution -in 2024- may be more convoluted and open to interpretation than they were to the fractured American people some 237 years ago.

Now, more than ever, I gaze at this country through my Millennial eyes, eyes that can only see a short distance into the past. I see an America that is polarized by dissenting opinions; a predominantly privileged people who become enraged or offended by nearly every wave of local and global news while sacrificing very little of our comfort to enact change; a people who seem incapable of overlooking their differences with those on “the other side of the aisle” long enough to actually collaborate; a culture of social media addiction that obsessively pedestalizes celebrities and simultaneously cancels the celebrity monsters we ourselves created.

—James balDwin

illustration by knowledgeispower.medium.com/

Are my pomp and pessimism part of the problem? They may very well be. However, I am not so blinded by my Millennial hubris that I fail to see how much progress we have made since the formation of these states united by the notion of forming a more perfect Union. If we (i.e. Millennials and younger) were to ask our parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents if they are proud to be American in light of the social progress the country has made since they were our age, I’d bet my bottom dollar most of them would give an unequivocal resounding YES!

My parents, both aged 66, would fall into the second wave of “Boomers.” When asked what it was like coming of age in the America of the 1960’s and 70’s, my mom vividly recalls the visceral racial tensions that erupted when she integrated into an all white school, several years after the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court ruling was passed. Children and adults were literally throwing rocks and hiding their hands. My dad once shared a specific instance of discrimination during which his family was turned away from a motel simply for being black, while traveling in his childhood years. He has also made mention of being in the early years of his career as an engineer and being ‘gifted’ a racist backhanded compliment by a superior about how surprisingly well-spoken and intelligent he was compared to…ya know…the other members of his ethnic group. My grandma Marie, aged 96 (!!), who is a member of the “Post War” generation, has casually spoken of having to move to the back of the bus when white passengers would enter and being able to move up again once they all exited.

As of 2023, according to a Statista.com survey, “18 percent of those between 18 and 34 years of age considered themselves extremely proud to be American. In contrast, about half of respondents 55 and older considered themselves extremely proud to be American.” Furthermore, “In 2022, members of Gen Z were between the ages of 18 and 25 years old. Their political views have been developed against the backdrop of COVID-19, social unrest and police brutality, Donald Trump, and the global climate crisis. Along with Millennials, they were the most likely to describe themselves as Independent rather than loyal to a particular political party, and the least likely generation to be Republican. Gen Z have lower trust in government than previous generations and are more likely to worry about wages than any other generation.”

Having more access to lightning speed Googles and troubling cultural events, I understand why we younger folk are somewhat less optimistic. But I still wonder...in reality...do we actually have grounds to feel LESS satisfied with the state of this United States than our predecessors did and do? Or is this an unfair question? Should we use our Constitution’s virtuous claim of perfection as a target to aim at, rather than an impossible and naive feat to criticize? I don’t claim to have the ‘right answer,’ whatever that means. However, just asking ourselves these questions and being willing to dialogue with people who are generationally or ethnically different from us, is the key to generational humility and a huge step toward a more perfect union.

“We know what we are, but know not what we may be.” -William Shakespeare, Hamlet

I admire the question raised by Sandro Galea, MD, (Professor at Boston University) in his 2022 reflection on the conundrum of choosing to love a country even as we insist that it be better. He asks himself and the reader, "Can We Love a Country Even When It Falls Short?"

What if we chose to see the best in our country, even when she is -in our limited estimations- at her worst? What if we became informed and balanced in our views and dialogue with others, calling her higher? What if we did not lose hope, even when it seems she is a country that just cannot get better? That’s what our parents and their parents and their parents did. To borrow from Abraham Lincoln, what if we allowed “the better angels of our nature” to encourage us onward in the fight for justice, peace, freedom, personhood, and dignity for all peoples. After all, this is the way we do life with our children, our lovers, our best friends, our closest family members, and even ourselves. We know they are not who and what they could or should be, but we champion them nonetheless, as we work tirelessly to build them up and inspire them to become who we always knew they could be. ∎