When I think of America, I think of working on pre-cal homework in my room while a football game plays in the living room. The house smells like cornbread and freshly cooked steak tips, and there is a slight chill outside. My mom yells for me from the kitchen. It’s time to eat.Â
When I think of America, I think of being eighteen and newly graduated, kicking off the summer by swimming in my friend’s backyard, floating until our fingers wrinkled, and occasionally climbing out of the water to snack on a grape. Macklemore plays on the speakers.
When I think of America, I think of spontaneous late nights driving around in the Jeep, when everyone can feel the night winding down but nobody wants to be the first to admit it. And yet, somehow, we always end up at Whataburger. Eating in the car. Staring out the window, having the deepest conversations known to man.Â
But when I think of America, I also think of being Black.
I think of the time I was six years old when Trayvon Martin was murdered. The first time I remember sensing a deep injustice in our judicial system, the first time I questioned whether the people entrusted to protect us would actually do so.
I remember his picture on the television. The news cycled his story for days, playing in the background while we ate dinner. He was wearing a maroon Hollister shirt. He looked so normal.
He looked like me. He looked like my brother. He looked like my mom. He looked like someone I might find sitting on the couch after a long day at school, eating the Frosted Flakes I had told him not to touch.
He looked like family.
I was six years old, and I did not yet have the language for systemic injustice or racial inequality. I only knew that a boy who looked like the people I loved was dead. And for the first time, I wondered whether the systems meant to protect my family had our backs or whether they deliberately targeted them.
When I think of America, I think of what happened on my own campus a few weeks ago, when a school organization hosted a public speaker who used racist, sexist, and homophobic slurs in front of a crowd that included students who hold those very identities.
When I think of America, I think of our president, Jim Davis, responding to the event by telling students to not “stop to listen. Don’t stop to engage if you don’t want to be part of it. Don’t take the bait of someone seeking to provoke you.”
But I think that’s the point, Jim.
Acknowledge it. Face it. Let it provoke you.
Because there is a difference between refusing to take the bait and refusing to confront what the bait reveals.
Silence can feel like neutrality when you are not the one being targeted. Walking away can feel like peace when you are not the one left wondering whether the place you call home has room for you. What does it mean to tell people not to engage when what they are witnessing demands that someone care, Jim?
When I think of America, I think about that six-year-old girl watching Trayvon Martin’s face on the television. I think about the college student I am now, still trying to understand how a country that promises so much freedom can make belonging feel so conditional.
And I think about those Sunday nights, the smell of dinner, the laughter in the Jeep, and the late-night Whataburger runs. I think about how much I love the little things that make America feel like mine.
But when I think of America, I think of the parts that are harder to reconcile with the ones I love. I think about a country that can make space for incredible freedom and possibility, while also carrying a history of exclusion, inequality, and division. I think about how complicated it is to love a place that has not always known how to love me back.
I think about how if we are going to call this place home, then we cannot only defend it when it makes us proud. We have to be willing to confront it when it makes us uncomfortable.
Especially then.Â
This is the America I carry with me.
Which one do you carry?